Narrative and Bodily Identity in Eating Disorders: Toward an Integrated Theoretical-Clinical Approach

Eating disorders (EDs) can be viewed as “embodied acts” that help to cope with internal and external demands that are perceived as overwhelming. The maintenance of EDs affects the entire identity of the person; the lack of a defined; or valid sense of self is expressed in terms of both physical body and personal identity. According to attachment theory, primary relationships characterized by insecurity, traumatic experiences, poor mirroring, and emotional attunement lead to the development of dysfunctional regulatory strategies. Although the literature shows an association between attachment style or states of mind, trauma, behavioral strategies, and various EDs, the debate is still ongoing and the results are still conflicting. Therefore, we believe it is important to examine and treat EDs by understanding which narrative trajectory intercepts distress in relation to narrative and embodied self-concept. Drawing on clinical observation and a narrative review of the literature, we focus on the construction and organization of bodily and narrative identity. Because bodily representations are the primary tools for generating meaning, organizing experience, and shaping social identity from the earliest stages of life, we focus on the role that bodily interactions and sensorimotor and proprioceptive patterns have played in the development of EDs. We consider the role that lack of attunement, insecure attachment, and relational trauma play in mentalizing, affecting self-representation and emotion regulation strategies. The paper also considers a semantic mode of trauma in EDs that involves a top-down pathway through beliefs and narratives about oneself based on lack of amiability, on devaluation, and on humiliation memories. Finally, we would like to highlight the proposal of an integrated model with multiple access model to psychotherapy that takes into account the complexity of ED patients in whom aspects related to dysregulation, body image disintegration, and post-traumatic symptoms are associated with a suffering sense of self and a retraumatizing narrative.

Mary Astell on the Social Nature of the Cartesian Passions

Scholars have long recognised that Mary Astell builds her feminist critique of society on a foundation of Cartesian views about human nature and the passions. At the same time, the full extent of the influence of Descartes’ view of embodiment on the solution Astell proposes in her Serious Proposal to the Ladies is only beginning to come to light. In this paper, I contribute to this ongoing project by arguing that Astell builds on Descartes’ ideas by addressing a blind spot in his view, namely, that that the embodied self is socially situated, and that therefore, our social context plays a crucial formative role in the development of our passions. In doing so, I show Astell extends Cartesian philosophy beyond an egalitarian feminist critique of society, but also to a positive political theory offering a solution to the problems she identifies. Thusly, Astell shows the political potential of Cartesian philosophy as a framework for social critique and to seek solutions to the problems such a critique can bring out.

Power and Resistance: Digital-Free Tourism in a Connected World

Although digital-free tourism is growing in popularity, research in this area has not unpacked the complex power relations between humans and technology through a critical perspective. Building on Foucault’s analysis of power and resistance, we theorized technology as disciplinary power and conducted a collaborative autoethnography to explore how individuals resist the dominant discourse. Through a reflexive account, we theorize digital-free travel as a process of negotiating and rejecting the dominant discourse of technology, particularly through effective personal strategies of engaging in full disconnection, redefining punishments and rewards, recalling nostalgic memories, and constantly reflecting on embodied feelings and self-transformations in the power relations. Theoretically, this study contributes to understanding digital-free tourism through the lens of power and resistance; it also contributes to critical studies in technology and tourism. Methodologically, we emphasize the potential of applying collaborative autoethnography in analyzing embodied self-transformations. Practically, this study offers suggestions for digital-free tourism providers.

From Self-Esteem to Selflessness: An Evidence (Gap) Map of Self-Related Processes as Mechanisms of Mindfulness-Based Interventions

Self-related processes (SRPs) have been theorized as key mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), but the evidence supporting these theories is currently unclear. This evidence map introduces a comprehensive framework for different types of SRPs, and how they are theorized to function as mechanisms of MBIs (target identification). The evidence map then assesses SRP target engagement by mindfulness training and the relationship between target engagement and outcomes (target validation). Discussion of the measurement of SRPs is also included. The most common SRPs measured and engaged by standard MBIs represented valenced evaluations of self-concept, including rumination, self-compassion, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Rumination showed the strongest evidence as a mechanism for depression, with other physical and mental health outcomes also supported. Self-compassion showed consistent target engagement but was inconsistently related to improved outcomes. Decentering and interoception are emerging potential mechanisms, but their construct validity and different subcomponents are still in development. While some embodied self-specifying processes are being measured in cross-sectional and meditation induction studies, very few have been assessed in MBIs. The SRPs with the strongest mechanistic support represent positive and negative evaluations of self-concept. In sum, few SRPs have been measured in MBIs, and additional research using well-validated measures is needed to clarify their role as mechanisms.

‘All at the tap of a button’: Mapping the food app landscape

Mobile applications (commonly known as ‘apps’) are highly popular forms of software, with hundreds of billions of downloads globally each year. The ways in which the affordances of apps are portrayed on the app store platforms are crucial in sparking consumers’ initial interest. This article presents findings from the ‘Mapping the Food App Landscape’ study. The following two sources of online material were used in this study: (1) descriptions of food-related apps available in the Google Play store; and (2) the lists of the top-most installed free Android apps presented in the App Annie app analytics platform for Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analytical approach is distinctive in bringing together the key feminist new materialism concepts of affective forces, relational connections and agential capacities with that of the promissory narrative. The study’s findings show that inapp publishers’ efforts to entice users, the Google Play app descriptions presented food apps as solutions to or escapes from the stresses and difficulties of everyday life. These app descriptions promised to generate excitement, fun and pleasure (games apps); configure and support convenient food supply and preparation arrangements (food ordering and delivery, meal planning and recipe apps); offer reassurance and better control over the body and encourage greater embodied self-awareness, health and wellbeing (food-tracking and nutrition apps); and contribute to creative and novel experiments in cooking (recipe apps). These findings map the landscape of food apps and the sociocultural contexts in which they are being created, published and adopted.

EXPRESS: Identifying with the Beautiful: Facial attractiveness effects on unisensory and multisensory self-other distinction

People tend to evaluate their own traits and abilities favourably and such favourable self-perceptions extend to attractiveness. However, the exact mechanism underlying this self-enhancement bias remains unclear. One possibility could be the identification with attractive others through blurring of self-other boundaries. Across two experiments, we used the enfacement illusion to investigate the effect of others’ attractiveness in the multisensory perception of the self. In Experiment 1 (N=35), participants received synchronous or asynchronous interpersonal visuo-tactile stimulation with an attractive and non-attractive face. In Experiment 2 (N=35), two new faces were used and spatial incοngruency was introduced as a control condition. The results showed that increased ratings of attractiveness of an unfamiliar face lead to blurring of self-other boundaries, allowing the identification of our psychological self with another's physical self and, specifically, their face, and this seems to be unrelated to perceived own attractiveness. The effect of facial attractiveness on face ownership showed dissociable mechanisms, with multisensory integration modulating the effect on similarity but not identification, an effect that may be purely based on vision. Overall, our findings suggest that others’ attractiveness may lead to positive distortions of the self. This research provides a psychophysical starting point for studying the impact of others' attractiveness on self-face recognition, which can be particularly important for individuals with malleable, embodied self-other boundaries and body image disturbances.

Descartes on Subjects and Selves

Descartes makes a double commitment about selves. While he argues that the ‘I’ is nothing but a thinking thing he also identifies it with the union of the mind and body. This chapter explores this tension by analyzing Descartes’ account of our experience of ourselves and argues that in the background of Descartes’ usage of ‘I’ in reference to both the mind and the union is an idea of a subject of experience taking herself in one or the other way. When a subject refers to herself with ‘I’, the ‘I’ always picks out a subject of experience regardless of whether the subject understands what it, metaphysically, picks out. Body-dependent features partaking in what one takes oneself to be are a matter of representation. However, embodied self-presence is on a par with purely intellectual self-presence, because the latter is likewise a matter of representation. This means that thoughts are constitutive of selfhood not because they ontologically belong to the thinking substance as its modifications, but rather in virtue of conveying content that affects what we take ourselves to be.

Dear Body… An Explorative Study on Anomalous Bodily Experiences in Persons with Feeding and Eating Disorders

<b><i>Objective:</i></b> The aim of the study was to provide a qualitative analysis of anomalous bodily experiences (ABEs) of persons affected by feeding and eating disorders (FEDs). In particular, this study aimed to refine the description of bodily experiences in persons with FEDs so as to improve their treatment. <b><i>Sampling and Methods:</i></b> This is a naturalistic explorative study on a group of 29 patients affected by FED in psychotherapeutic treatment and 12 healthy controls. We asked the participants to write a letter on the way they experience their body. Later, we analysed their letters by means of consensual qualitative research. <b><i>Results:</i></b> All patients (29) reported at least 1 ABE. The main categories identified are (1) body-obstacle (<i>the body interposes between the person and the world</i>); (2) body-tyrant (<i>the body imposes itself on the will of the person</i>); (3) body-hyper-visible (<i>the body is experienced as an exposed object</i>); (4) body-geometric (<i>the body is experienced or associated with a geometric form</i>); and (5) body-numerical (<i>the body is defined by numbers</i>). All these categories are present in the clinical group, and they are absent in the control group. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> To grasp the experiential nuances of ABEs is relevant to understand the disorder of embodied self-hood and personal identity in these patients and thus to refine clinical treatment.

The Dynamic Boundaries of The Self: Serial Dependence In Embodied Sense of Agency

The feeling of control over one’s actions, termed the Sense of Agency (SoA), delineates one’s experience as an embodied self. Although, this embodied experience is typically perceived as stable over time, recent theoretical accounts highlight the experience-dependent and dynamic nature of the embodied self. In this study we examined how recent experiences modulate SoA (i.e., serial dependence), and disambiguated the unique contributions of previous stimuli and choices on subsequent SoA judgments. In addition, we examined whether these effects persist across different domains of perceptual alteration. We analyzed two independent datasets of the Virtual Hand (VH) task (N = 100 participants) in which a sensorimotor conflict is introduced between the presented visual feedback and the actual movement performed. In Dataset 1, which included only temporal alterations, we found that previous stimuli recalibrate current perception, increasing the likelihood of the current choice to be different than the previous choice. Whereas previous choices induce a repetition bias increasing the likelihood to repeat choices across trials. Thus, previous external stimuli and self-generated choices exert opposing influences on SoA. We replicated these findings in Dataset 2, in which the VH task was tested with alterations in both temporal and spatial domains. In addition, we discovered that previous stimuli from a different perceptual domain exert a recalibration effect similar to stimuli from the same domain. Thus, SoA is constantly shaped by our previous subjective choices and objective stimuli experienced even across different perceptual domains. This highlights how SoA may act as unifying construct organizing our experience of the self over time and across perceptual experiences.

The Need for Temperance

This article explores how temperance as a virtue relates to organizational leadership. The study begins with a short survey of classical Greek and Christian notions of temperance before proceeding to ex- plore temperance in relation to self-leadership, visionary and strategic leadership, and relational lead- ership. The final part of the article offers reflections on how temperance might be cultivated from a theological perspective. Temperance is understood not only as sound thinking but also as embodied self-control and active patience. On the level of self-leadership, it is argued that temperance enables the leader to establish forms of integrity that protect the leader’s self from chaos and destruction. Moreover, temperance may also nurture focused visionary leadership that accepts ethical limits and has an eye to the common good. The study also suggests that organizations should cultivate a culture of strategic discipline that is capable of realizing such visions. On the interpersonal level, temperance is viewed as critical in terms of enabling leaders to treat co-workers with respect and wisdom and handle conflict with consideration. Finally, is argued that that the cultivation of temperance is not a one-way street from the inside to the outside or a subordination of feelings to reason but rather a very complex process that includes interpersonal humility, finds vision in an encounter with the good, and yet remains a personal responsibility.