The Body in Medical Thought and Practice

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Drew Leder

      Pages 1-12

3. Theoretical Overviews

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

      PDF

   2. Phenomenological Critiques

      1. A Tale of Two Bodies: The Cartesian Corpse and the Lived Body

         • Drew Leder

         Pages 17-35

      2. Why Aren’t More Doctors Phenomenologists?

         • Richard J. Baron

         Pages 37-47

   3. Sociopolitical Critiques

      1. Foucault’s Political Body in Medical Praxis

         • Carole Spitzack

         Pages 51-68

      2. On the Body in Medical Self-Care and Holistic Medicine

         • Anthony Weston

         Pages 69-84

   4. Cultural and Historical Perspectives

      1. A Confucian Perspective on Embodiment

         • Tu Wei-Ming

         Pages 87-100

      2. Parted Bodies, Departed Souls: The Body in Ancient Medicine and Anatomy

         • Richard M. Zaner

         Pages 101-122

4. Regional Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 123-123

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   2. Specific Diseases

      1. The Body in Multiple Sclerosis: A Patient’s Perspective

         • S. Kay Toombs

         Pages 127-137

      2. Psychosomatics, The Lived Body, and Anthropological Medicine: Concerning a Case of Atopic Dermatitis

         • Georg Northoff, Michael Alan Schwartz, Osborne P. Wiggins

         Pages 139-154

      3. The Body with AIDS: A Post-Structuralist Approach

         • Julien S. Murphy

         Pages 155-176

   3. Women’s Bodies: Body Image, Size, and Objectification

      1. Obesity, Objectification, and Identity: The Encounter with the Body as an Object in Obesity

         • Donald Moss

         Pages 179-196

      2. Eating Disorders: The Feminist Challenge to the Concept of Pathology

         • Susan Bordo

         Pages 197-213

      3. Breasted Experience: The Look and the Feeling

         • Iris Marion Young

         Pages 215-230

5. The Body of the Future

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 231-231

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   2. The Body of the Future

      • Eric J. Cassell

      Pages 233-249

6. Back Matter

   Pages 251-260

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In the second half of the 20th century, the body has become a central theme of intellectual debate. How should we perceive the human body? Is it best understood biologically, experientially, culturally? How do social institutions exercise power over the body and determine norms of health and behavior? The answers arrived at by phenomenologists, social theorists, and feminists have radically challenged our cenventional notions of the body dating back to 17th century Cartesian thought.
This is the first volume to systematically explore the range of contemporary thought concerning the body and draw out its crucial implications for medicine. Its authors suggest that many of the problems often found in modern medicine -- dehumanized treatment, overspecialization, neglect of the mind's healing resources -- are directly traceable to medicine's outmoded concepts of the body. New and exciting alternatives are proposed by some of the foremost physicians and philosophers working in the medical humanities today.

• 20th century
• body
• concept
• eros
• health

• Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore, USA

  Drew Leder

Policies and ethics