ABSTRACT
The notion of the body image has figured strongly in psychoanalytic conceptions of subjectivity as a third term intervening between and requiring the operations of both mind and body. This chapter outlines more directly the sources of the body image or corporeal schema developed in the work of psychologists and neurophys. The body image registers current sensations but also preserves a record of past impressions and experiences against which its present sensations and movements can be compared. The body image is derived to a large extent from the perceptions, sensations, and movements of the organic body, yet sensation alone is not adequate to build up the body image or to explain its characteristics and attributes. The body image is necessary for the distinction between the figure and ground, or between central and peripheral actions. The body image is always slightly temporally out of step with the current state of the subject’s body.
