The concept of the ‘body image’ rests on a broad foundation of neurological and psychological observations. Neurological observations of phantom limbs, agnosias, apraxias, and similar phenomena led to an initial formulation of the body image as a postural, spatial image of the body (2, 6). Schilder greatly expanded the concept by delineating the importance of libidinal (instinctual) and sociological factors in the make-up of the body image (7). Current psychiatric usage has (perhaps too loosely) equated the term body image with phrases such as 'self system’, 'self concept’, ‘ego identity’, etc. (8). The importance of the body image as a postural or spatial model, a ‘base of operations' from which a person extends himself into space, with its implications for movement and motor activity, is often overlooked but vividly evident in many endeavours, particularly aviation.
Consciousness and body image: lessons from phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome and pain asymbolia