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Our self is first and foremost a body-as-experienced-being-handled-and held-by-other-self (Lewis Aron)
Common sense, though all very well for everyday purposes, is easily confused, even by such simple questions as … when you feel a pain in the leg, where is the pain? If you say it is in your head, would it be in your head if your leg had not been amputated? If you say yes, then what reason have you for ever thinking you have a leg? (Bertrand Russell)
How much energy did you put into thinking about what you might wear this morning? Or yesterday when you were seeing your patients or clients? Do you have a uniform you grab for, an all purpose work look that minimizes fussing about clothes on a daily basis? Do you wear different clothes for different patients? Has your style changed? Do you wear bright clothes one day, sexy another, elegant or scruffy at other times? Do you fret about your appearance, wonder how you are perceived by your patients, worry lest they comment on the bodily changes you are going through?
What do you think of how I wear my clothes? Of how I move as I talk, of the register my voice occupies, of how I seem in my body? Do you like what you see? Do you feel uncomfortable, think I'm mutton dressed up as lamb? Are you disturbed by my regularly flicking my hair out of my eyes?
Let's go a step further. How does the way in which I am in my body affect your feelings about your body. Does it make you more or less self aware? Does my body presence sanction, confirm, disturb, turn you off, overwhelm you? Does it please you? What does it tell you about you and your body and your relation to other bodies?
When I opened the door to Doreen, I never knew quite knew what to expect. A 50-year-old professional woman, a heterosexual mother of four grown children, roughly 5 feet 9 inches tall and of big build, she would arrive in