Our Place in Space: an Experienced Rather Than a Measured Reality

Abstract

Research in cognitive psychology has found that healthy individuals systematically distort body image representation, overestimating the length and underestimating the volume of their body parts. This article argues that such systematic distortions are not merely methodological limitations but evidence of a deeper conceptual problem of attempting to measure a lived, experienced body as though it were an external object. Based on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, orientational metaphors as theorised by Lakoff and Johnson, and embodied cognition theory, this article proposes that the body is not an object occupying space but the egocentric origin of all spatial experience, and that body image is an ongoing construction shaped through sensorimotor engagement with the world rather than a fixed internal map. Body image conceptual reframing carries clinical implications, discussed through the case of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Finally, this article suggests that BDD treatment should shift from correcting perception against an external norm to spatial reorientation through embodied engagement.