« Body Schema and Body Image. At the crossroad of Somatics and Social Work »

« Que faisons-nous et à quoi ça sert? Image du corps et schéma corporel dans la méthode Feldenkrais »

Isabelle Ginot (1)

1 Laboratoire d’analyse des discours et pratiques en danse

This research has begun to respond to fieldwork difficulties met in bringing somatic practices, particularly Feldenkrais, into the field of social work. The endogenous discourses produced by the Feldenkrais community to describe and analyse the practice proved to be counter‐productive to convince social work professionals of the relevance of Somatics to participate in the global support of people living in a cluster of social difficulty including health (chronic disease), ethnic and cultural differences (migration). The analysis of endogenous discourses has shown discrepancies within discourses themselves, and between discourse and practice. This article presents an alternative Feldenkrais description based on Gallagher's model of body image and body schema, and the relevance of such a model to the Feldenkrais method, but also to social work, as a model allowing describing the experience of social exclusion as a somatic experience.

Keywords: Feldenkrais; body image; body schema; social work; politics

Domains: Musicology and performing arts; Art and art history

Isabelle Ginot. « Body Schema and Body Image. At the crossroad of Somatics and Social Work ». Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, 2012, 3 (1&2), pp.151-165. ⟨hal-00798808v2⟩