In Psychology
In some branches of psychology, depending on school of thought, a physical body is a physical object with physical properties, as compared to mental objects. In (reductionistic) behaviorism, a physical body and its properties are the (only) meaningful objects of study. While in the modern day behavioral psychotherapy it is still only the means for goal oriented behavior modifications, in Body Psychotherapy it is not a means only anymore, but its felt sense is a goal of its own. In cognitive psychology, physical bodies as they occur in biology are studied in order to understand the mind, which may not be a physical body, as in functionalist schools of thought.
Read more about this topic: Physical Body
Famous quotes containing the word psychology:
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I was now at a university in New York, a professor of existential psychology with the not inconsiderable thesis that magic, dread, and the perception of death were the roots of motivation.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)