Embodied Psychotherapy: A Critique of the Mind-Body Problem

This dissertation explores the enduring confusion in the field of psychology concerning the material body. After delineating the problems with how the body is currently appropriated within the field of psychotherapy, three current conceptualizations of the body in psychology were reviewed and critiqued, namely body image theory, cognitive science, and body psychotherapy; these critiques of conceptualizations of the body illustrated significant limitations in the understanding of and value given to the body. Continuing on, Perrin Elisha’s The Conscious Body and her articulation of the various solutions to the mind–body problem were utilized, pointing to the need for a cohesive metatheoretical framework for appropriating the body in psychotherapy. Finally, a working metatheory based on the theory of embodied cognition was detailed, with the goal of providing a scaffold for clinicians to understand, conceptualize, and approach the body in a way that offers space for the body to possess value, validity, and a language