Revelation and Recovery

Abstract

This chapter reviews some of the points made in the preceding analyses of specific topics and then goes on to consider the implications for approaching social psychology “with the body in mind.” Its purpose is not to put forward a theory of the body or a framework for an embodied social psychology, whatever these might be. Instead, I want to make explicit some of the issues that have surfaced in the course of this book’s specific dis­cussions and to use these to explain more clearly the relationship between this book’s treatment of physical existence and the discipline in general. At its simplest, we can say that acknowledging, denying, resisting, or endorsing the body in one’s theory and practice makes a difference to the kind of social psychology in which one engages. We can add to this that these differences bear upon our awareness of the assumptions that we make about the subject matter of social psychology. Perhaps that is why the mere presence of the body as a term in the literature guarantees little about our becoming aware of these differences:

The first difficulty to be faced is that the type of corporealism which has grown up since the 1970’s has brought with it an excessive use of the term “body”. The body would appear to be everywhere [in spite of the fact that] researchers who ... don’t deal with the topic in their work refer to it on every page. The basic approach has not, however, fundamentally changed even though the body is now exposed whereas before it was hidden and is referred to in various fields which have acquired scientific status such as diet, sexuality, beauty care, etc. The attention currently accorded to the body then is perhaps indicative of a fashion or even an intellectual move-ment which does not necessarily involve a step forward in knowledge. (Berthelot, 1986, p. 155)