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The Body Image of the Aviator

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

G. J. Tucker ,
R. F. Reinhardt  and
N. B. Clarke
G. J. Tucker
Affiliation:
Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut, 06510
R. F. Reinhardt
Affiliation:
M.C., U.S.N., Division of Psychiatry and Neurology, Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, Pensacola, Florida
N. B. Clarke
Affiliation:
M.S.C., U.S.N., Division of Psychiatry and Neurology, Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, Pensacola, Florida
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Extract

The concept of the ‘body image’ rests on a broad foundation of neurological and psychological observations. Neurological observations of phantom limbs, agnosias, apraxias, and similar phenomena led to an initial formulation of the body image as a postural, spatial image of the body (2, 6). Schilder greatly expanded the concept by delineating the importance of libidinal (instinctual) and sociological factors in the make-up of the body image (7). Current psychiatric usage has (perhaps too loosely) equated the term body image with phrases such as 'self system’, 'self concept’, ‘ego identity’, etc. (8). The importance of the body image as a postural or spatial model, a ‘base of operations' from which a person extends himself into space, with its implications for movement and motor activity, is often overlooked but vividly evident in many endeavours, particularly aviation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 114 , Issue 507 , February 1968 , pp. 233 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1968 

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References

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