Abstract

While the self-representation of our bodies is a key element in our belief that we are autonomous individuals with a “first-person perspective,” the term body image covers and has covered a variety of meanings. In neurology, this term currently designates the verbal representation of the body parts. Psychoanalysis considers body image as intertwining the imaginary and symbolic aspects of identity, and insists on its dependence on the Other’s regard; this link to regard appears in the term specular image. This paper first presents a history of the modern psychiatrical, psychological and neurological conceptions of own-body representation. Next, it considers applications of the Lacanian notion of specular image in neurological disorders of body image