ABSTRACT
In 1923, Freud, building theory from clinical observations, made his famous, pithy statement, “The ego is first and foremost a body ego” (Freud, 1923/1953, p. 26). Less well known and more obtuse is the immediate continuation of this definition of the ego, “It is not merely a surface entity but it is itself the projection of a surface” (p. 26). Freud’s translator, Joan Riviere, clarified Freud’s meaning with the following note: “That is, the ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations, chiefly from those springing from the surface of the body. It may thus be regarded as a mental projection of the surface of the body” (p. 26). Thus, for Freud the theoretician and clinician, the psychological agency that represents the person’s ability to deal with the environment throughout life comes into being and has its particular character determined by transactions with the environment at the body’s own boundary or surface. Fenichel (1945) elaborated on this process:
In the development of reality the conception of one’s own body plays a very special role. At first there is only the perception of tension, that is, of an “inside something.” Later, with the awareness that an object exists to quiet this tension, we have an “outside something.”… One’s own body becomes something apart from the rest of the world and thus the discerning of self from nonself is made possible. The sum of the mental representations of the body and its organs, the so-called body image, constitutes the idea of I and is of basic importance for the further formation of the ego. (pp. 35-36)
Thereafter, the strength of the ego largely determines the quality of a person’s life. In the decades following Freud’s (1923/1953) statements, numerous clinicians,
theoreticians, and researchers attempted to connect the body and the mind in psychological theory of personality and behavior. In 1958, Fisher and Cleveland published their pioneering work on body image. As they conceptualized it:
[Body image] refers to the body as a psychological experience, and focuses on the individual’s feelings and attitudes toward his own body. It is concerned with the individual’s subjective experiences with his body and the manner in which he has organized these experiences…. The body image is literally an image of his own body which the individual has evolved through experience…. Body image may in certain respects overlap the various usages of concepts like ego, self, and self-concept, (pp. x-xi)
Like Freud, Fisher and Cleveland conceptualized the body image as a psychological representation with a functional boundary differentiating the inner world of the self fromthe rest of the world. And although their body image concepts may be somewhat similar to Freud’s notions of the ego, Fisher and Cleveland’s work was unique in how they operationalized, tested, and developed their theory.
