FEMINISM, PSYCHOLOGY AND MATTERS OF THE BODY

Psychology's renewed interest in the body, even within feminist theory , has brought with it several philosophical and theoretical challenges . These challenges stem mainly from questions about how to celebrate a return to the body when conceptions of the meaning of 'woman' have be en tied historically to women's bodies. That is, for feminists, any re turn to the body requires a two-fold examination. It requires first an inquiry into the part of reigning epistemological assumptions in psyc hology's fastening of women's bodies to women's psyches, and its const ruction of women's psychological problems as rooted in their bodies. A nd, second, it necessitates attention to those ways in which women's b odies have confronted age-old mind-body splits. Only by this twinned a ppreciation of the body both as the site of oppression and as the poss ibility for emancipation can feminists move beyond repeating yet anoth er variation of woman as body.