Abstract

FREITAS, Joanneliese de Lucas; ARENHART, Paula  and  ABUHAMAD, Mariana. He/she left the body home, went to therapy: the body according to psychologists. Rev. abordagem gestalt. [online]. 2018, vol.24, n.2, pp. 157-166. ISSN 1809-6867.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18065/RAG.2018v24n2.4.

The body-mind problem is historically connected to the understanding of the psyche in psychology. The literature points out that despite the recent increase in the number of studies about body and corporeality in Brazilian psychology, the concept of a body reduced to bios still prevails among psychologists. In this paper, we investigate the conception of the body among psychologists in a city in southern Brazil. We interviewed twenty-one professionals and analyzed the results by Van Manen's phenomenological qualitative method. We observed that participants presented difficulties to circumscribe the relation between body and psyche and to articulate its theoretical and practical aspects. There is a tendency to separate phenomena as "inner" and "outer". Frequently they understand that the body is subordinated to language and psyche, except during organic illness when corporeality gains more evidence. We conclude that interviewees tend to understand the body in a dichotomous relation to the mental, as predominates among them an understanding of the body as a mere expression of the psyche, often uprooted from its historicity.

Keywords : Body; Psyche; Psychology.

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