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Bodies (Big Ideas)

Bodies (Big Ideas)

by SusieOrbach (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2009

    $3.36
Synopsis

In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, while eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting girls as young as six. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran, behind the Hijab there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. In Brazil breasts and bottoms are reshaped along with the face so that women there, as in China and Iran (and pretty much everywhere else in reach of global media) can reflect western norms of beauty. In her years of practice as a psychoanalyst, Susie Orbach has come to realise that the way we view our bodies is the mirror of how we view ourselves: our body becomes the measure of our worth. In this book, she finally raises the fundamental questions about how we got there.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 160
 Edition: Main
 Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 26 Jan 2009
ISBN 10: 1846680190
ISBN 13: 9781846680199
Book Overview: We may be the last generation to inhabit bodies not routinely reconstructed by surgical enhancements. Over the last decades, our body has become an individual statement and a crucial personal responsibility. For many of us, it is the source of terrible difficulty while for others it is an expensive commodity...

Media Reviews
A smart and rich compendium of what is going on within and without our bodies today It was Heracles who killed the poisonous Hydra, and in this brave and significant book, Orbach does battle with a full quiver of her own fire-tipped arrows, her blazing firebrand levelled at self-hatred in all its forms. -- Min Jin Lee * The Times *
A must-read -- Anna Carey * The Gloss *
[It] may change for ever, as it did for me, the way you look at television makeover programmes, journalism that promotes physica self-perfection as empowerment , and suspiciously svelte photos in glossy adverts. -- Lionel Shriver * Mail on Sunday *
Bodies is a timely counterblast against our harsh new visual culture, obsessed with the perfection of the physical self. -- Min Jin Lee * The Times *
The strength of Orbach's argument in this timely and important book lies in the ease with which she balances the language of psychoanalysis with a discussion of the body's chemistry, and statistical evidence with cultural commentary. Bodies has a mission, and it ends with a manifesto proposing that we rethink the body in such a way that we can both take it for granted and enjoy it . Whatever the future, Orbach has given us food for thought. -- Frances Wilson * The Sunday Times *
Bodies is a terrifying, terrific read. -- Chitra Ramaswamy * Scotland on Sunday *
Orbach comes from a psychoanalytic background, and her wide-ranging essay brings together - persuasively and sometimes bravely - a whole range of body anxieties and sets them in context...This is a serious book - and one of the saddest I've read in a long time. It is grounded in compassion, righteous anger and practical good sense...I came to Bodies expecting to find the work of just the sort of self-help hippie I can't stand. I came away having learnt something. We are at war with our own bodies, and both sides are losing. -- Sam Leith * Daily Mail *
This vivid, trenchant book seeks to help us live more sustainable and more peacebly with and from our bodies. I don't know anybody who won't be the better for reading it * Psychologies Magazine, South Africa *
This is a terrific, timely book. Body tyranny has been hurting us for decades... Reading this book made me think: our system makes us want things until we're so damaged that we can't go on, and it's showing on our skinny, obese, scarred, tattooed, pierced and hated bodies. And now it looks like the system is breaking down. Which might be good news for bodies. -- William Leith * Observer *
Excellent -- Janet Street-Porter * Daily Mail *
Author Bio
Professor Susie Orbach - the therapist who treated Princess Diana for her eating disorders - is the founder of the Women's Therapy Centre of London; a former columnist for The Guardian; a visiting professor at the London School of Economics; and the author of 1978 best-seller Fat is a Feminist Issue. She is probably the most famous psychotherapist to have set up couch in Britain since Sigmund Freud. She lives in London.