ABSTRACT
Krueger (1989) uses the term `the body self' to refer to the person's experience of the embodied self, which includes all the kinesthetic experiences of internal and external bodily aspects and processes. A secure attachment experience will lead to a solid sense of inhabiting one's own body and feeling comfortable in one's own skin. The development of the body self is intimately dependent on a delicate process of attunement between (m)other and child. Through touching, stroking and handling the child's body the mother conveys to the child on a sensory level a sense of the bodily self and its boundaries. This experience is internalized by the child as the basis of the body image: `Our self is ®rst and foremost a body-as-experiencedbeing-handled-and-held-by-other self, in other words, our self is ®rst and foremost a body-in-relation-self' (Aron and SommerAnderson, 1998: 20). We internalize the manner in which we are handled and responded to as babies which informs our bodily self experience and our embodied sense of self in the world.
