Seminar 4: Losing the limbs or half of the body: Development of the body image.
In this seminar, we discuss Geneviève Haag’s work on primitive anxieties concerning the loss of half of the body or of limbs, as well as the developmental hypotheses concerning the construction of the body image that grew out of this work. Because most of Haag’s writing has not been translated into English, the Required Reading is a summary of her proposals, and original papers are in the Recommended Reading.
Primitive Anxieties by Maria Rhode
Seminar 4: Losing the limbs or half of the body: Development of the body image
In this series of seminars, we will consider various manifestations of existential anxieties, which are to do with survival and which are manifested on the level of the body. We will also discuss how such anxieties can underlie a range of other problems, both in children and in adults; and how, instead of being walled off (encapsulated), they can come to be integrated into the personality.