ABSTRACT
The body in western society has become the focus of many contemporary preoccupations ranging from the search for identity1 to the quest for immortality.2 Bodies are celebrated in the magazines of the mass media, honed in gyms and health clubs, surgically enhanced in operating theatres; and sick bodies are treated by the medical profession or by recourse to alternative therapies. The understanding that every person experiences life as an embodied person seems almost too simple a statement to make, but its importance lies in the bearing that it has on our understanding of the place and significance of the body. Having a body is a shared feature of human existence, though the subjective experience of being embodied is unique to every person.3 Since the Enlightenment, the societal conception of the body has been founded on the understanding of the body of the individual as autonomous.
