European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 27, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 modern living the stars and stripes april the Power of my my my body by Daniel Goleman new York times of All the ways people experience perhaps none is so primal As the sense of their own yet that researchers Are is prone to psycho logical distortions that can have profound effects on How people View themselves and their for tend to distort their perceptions of their bodies just As distort their though in a More self aggrandizing according to a study published in the journal of abnormal another Thomas said in an inter about on third of particularly report being strongly dissatisfied with their bodies this is True even among people who quite at a psychologist at old Dominion College in has developed a therapy for people whose body image is unrealistically in the current View of Many the importance of the body has often been overlooked in psych Logi Cal Seymour a psychologist at upstate medical Center in who has been a Pioneer in research on body says theories of behaviour cannot afford to omit the powerful Impact of the imme Diate experience of ones body in every the body image is so crucial to a persons very sense of psychologists that distortions in it can have significant they Range from enhancing or impairing ones general sense of Well being to creating a susceptibility to mental and the researchers Are finding that this image is remarkably changing As circumstances As moods for or As a person encounters different sorts of while the study of the body image has now become a Fertile area of the Field lacks a generally accepted re searchers have undertaken its study with widely varying for psychologists involved in physical rehabilitation Are trying to understand the role restoration of the body image plays in recovery from devastating working from a psychoanalytic Are finding relationships Between Early impairment in Peoples body image and the psychiatric symptoms they develop later in and social psychologists Are discovering that body image plays a crucial part in Peoples several studies have found that women Are far less satisfied with their particularly their than Are for weigh themselves More frequently than men describe themselves As fat More often and diet one major difference Between How men and women feel about their bodies centers on the Middle of the from hips to according to a National women tend to be least satisfied with that zone of their while men tend to be More new research by april Fallon and Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania shows that both men and women tend to be unrealistic about How others perceive their but men distort that perception while women do so the based on measures of close to 500 Coll Geage men and is reported in the journal of abnormal women in the study tended to rate their own bodies As heavier than those they Felt men found most attract moreover the women indicated that their Ideal body weight was even thinner than that they thought men liked when the men were asked what woman body they found most it was heavier than what women thought to be and was also heavier than what women thought men the mens Ideal body for a was lighter than most women Felt their own bodies a finding the researchers said gave a realistic basis to the women desire to be the men exhibited no such quandary about their or at least admitted to there on no appreciable difference Between How they rated their own what they Felt their own Ideal body would be and what they thought women liked in a mans but All the mens ratings were heavier than the mans body the women indicated was the most attractive to Fallon and Rozin As do Many other that the dissatisfaction women report with their own especially As compared to mens almost unrealistic satisfaction with their own May a body image is so crucial to a persons very sense of psychologists that distortions in it can have significant count for the higher rates among women of disorders such As anorexia Nerosa and which hinge on extremes of eating and about 90 percent of those who suffer these disorders Are mens preferences can account for Only part of this Pursuit of the researchers particularly since women Ideal body size is so much thinner than that preferred by among the factors the research ers propose As giving women a skewed sense of the Ideal woman body Are the extremely thin models used in fashion magazines and Fisher the major theorist of body in a Book to be published later this year by Lawrence Erlbaum Fisher elaborates a View of the psychology of the body image that he has been devel Oping for More than 25 people Are endlessly engaged in defensive strategies to Cope with body experiences which Are con and even according to research by Fisher and others has shown that Peoples sense of their own body is remarkably for the experience of failure has been found to make people feel As does being in the pres ence of a person in and the More people Pride themselves on their intellectual the larger in size they estimate their head to Fisher concludes that there is a constant process of feeling that ones body is growing larger or smaller As different life conditions Are the fantasy life of boys but not girls is Rife with damage to the Fisher this Early he is reflected life in How members of each sex handle anxiety about the he has Are More prone than Are women to disturbances in their body for in one study in which men and women heard tape Ings with subliminal including hostile and depressed the men More often experienced a disturbance in their sense of body Peoples daily rituals for caring for their bodies Long specific exercises Fisher serve to maintain a comforting sense of body so do clothes of a texture or tightness a person especially or rubbing the skin with favorite these he reassure people of the Security of the body such theories of body image Are becoming increasingly important to an understanding of the psychological reactions of people who suffer devastating Myron a psychologist at Case Western re serve and John of Stanford univer Are studying How people with disabilities such As spinal Cord View their Many of these patients seem to have lost touch with the sense of their Eisenberg they have a chaotic body rebuilding the body image May play a key role in making a psychological adjustment to such others have found that people with longstanding physical handicaps mentally separate the injured part from the rest of the and often express Overall satisfaction with their body despite the How people feel about their particularly How attractive they feel themselves to varies with for people who Are mildly depressed evaluate their bodies according to a report in the journal of clinical and consulting such negative views Are in Sharp contrast to the illusory glow that people often bring to such compari people who Are not by see themselves on average As More attractive than others rate them to said one of the authors of the even Cash has found that there is often Little connection Between How attractive people Are and How attractive they feel they particularly among a woman who seems quite unattractive can be quite Content with her while another who is highly attractive can be so obsessed with every Little flaw in her appearance that she feels Cash Are More susceptible to such feelings because appearance is so much More Central to their Overall feelings about themselves than it is for on the other hand men put much More emphasis on physical fitness in shaping their body image than do Cash is developing a treatment program tailored to those who suffer from intensely negative feelings about their so All those treated have been women have come for treatment who were extremely said but that the outside not How they see the program includes having the women look in a Mirror and note the irrational thoughts that Spring to Many will in so ugly i cant stand to look at or will be obsessed with some Small imperfect As the shape of her nose or the size of her said  generalize that detail to their whole and ignore the ways they Are attract Cash the women compare them selves Only to the models in magazines or the actresses they see on television and in rather than to the women they see in Ordinary Treyve fallen prey to the creeping standards of Beauty in our