Feeling Bodies: Embodying Psychology

John Cromby author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Palgrave Macmillan

Published:16th Jul '15

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Feeling Bodies: Embodying Psychology cover

Before we are anything else, we are feeling bodies. In fact, feelings are an important part of every experience we ever have. This book explains what feelings are, describes their relationship with other psychological phenomena, and shows how their analysis transforms understandings of some key topics related to health and illness.

'This book is not just timely, it's long-overdue. It weaves together a sophisticated, engaging argument that draws on philosophy, neuroscience and an array of psychology sub-fields to firmly locate feelings at the heart of an embodied psychology. It provides a majestic and broad account of the affective realm (including emotions, moods, affects and feeling) and its relevance to psychology, interrogating why this realm has been treated as relatively unproblematic (and under-explored) despite the 'affective turn' that has taken place elsewhere in the social sciences and humanities.

Cromby's writing sweeps the reader up and takes them through wide-ranging and convincing arguments that feelings are central to all of the diverse fields within psychology. Here feelings are simultaneously social and individual, related to ideologies as well as socialised experiences. He grounds his argument by considering the ways in which we might investigate and interrogate such an approach, using worked examples in health and clinical psychology (across 3 chapters). This demonstrates its value in enabling thorough re-conceptualizations of key psychological phenomena, from the biological to the social, which incorporate experience, the materiality of the body as well as material environments and circumstances. This inspiring account marks feelings out as a way to re-envision many key psychological concepts, including fundamental notions of personhood, embodiment, and embodied subjectivity. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to move beyond dominant conceptualisations of the person as separated into individual/social, nature/culture, and body/mind dichotomies.' Antonia Lyons, Professor of Psychology, Massey University, New Zealand

ISBN: 9781137380579

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 3943g

221 pages

1st ed. 2015