Optimising patterns of life conduct

King, Vera; Schreiber, Julia; Uhlendorf, Niels; Gerisch, Benigna

doi:10.4324/9781315179964-5

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Broadly speaking, the APAS project investigates the connections between social transformation (understood as the logic of enhancement, growth, intensification, acceleration, etc.) and psychological patterns of coping (Gerisch, Salfeld, Beerbom, Busch, & King, 2019; King, Schreiber, Uhlendorf, & Gerisch, 2019). As described above, we assume a social dynamization of the structures of competition and recognition, which creates various kinds of pressure to optimize and holds consequences for social relationships, self-constructs, and body practices.…”

Section: Analysis Of Body Optimization In the Apas Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“. . . To really have everything completely perfect”: On the psychodynamics of contemporary forms of body optimization.

King

Gerisch

Schreiber

2020

Psychoanalytic Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article discusses practices of body optimization in the social context of a permanent struggle for the enhancement of performance and self-improvement that affects all areas of life. First, it considers social psychological, sociological and psychoanalytic approaches to this phenomenon before presenting and interpreting two female case studies from a research project. Pivotal in this regard is the question of how and in what way social needs and demands, on the one hand, can interact with individual biographical dispositions, on the other hand, to create specific forms of (body-related) optimization practices. Since forms of body optimization serve as a means of dealing with psychic problems and conflicts (which, to some extent, have analogous structures to eating disorders), questions concerning the shifts of normality and pathology arise.

show abstract

Section: Analysis Of Body Optimization In the Apas Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%