The body has come to provide a central site for theory and debate from social theory to cultural studies. This important and compelling book looks beyond psychology's traditional biological body to explore what insights can be gained from recent theories of embodiment.

Taking the body as inscribed by social and disciplinary practices, leading contributors explore a wide range of psychological topics in new and challenging ways. Questions surrounding health, gender, history and culture are addressed in contexts such as the psychology of pain, the treatment of anorexia nervosa, and...

This work provides a range of possibilities, suggestions and manifestos for the importance of the body to the discipline of psychology. Each contributor invites us to consider certain questions and possibilites of psychological and social life that the body opens for revaluation.

I was asked and, alas, with little reflection on the magnitude of the task, thoughtlessly consented, to take on the 'simple' job of writing a preface to the collection of essays comprising this volume. That I was asked to carry out this simple task was probably due to one consideration: I was the main representative of the host institution (Clark University) for the 1991 ISTP Conference, at which the talks, foreshadowing and outlining the 'extended remarks' here printed, were originally presented, and hence, as a token of gratitude, I was vouchsafed the honor of setting the stage. It did not...