Commentary on: “The body social: an enactive approach to the self“. A tool for merging bodily and social self in immobile individuals

Citation: Galli G and Pazzaglia M (2015) Commentary on: " The body social: an enactive approach to the self. " A tool for merging bodily and social self in immobile individuals. A commentary on The body social: an enactive approach to the self The article by Miriam Kyselo titled " The body social: an enactive approach to the self " (Kyselo, 2014) raises a crucial issue and discusses how bodily and social aspects may merge together in a unique account of the human self. The author rightly suggests that we do not have to choose between the bodily and social dimensions of self. The integration process between bodily and social self may fail in patients with a number of neurological and psychiatric diseases, as well as during certain experimental conditions (Lucci and Pazzaglia, 2015). Various neurological conditions produce disturbed self perceptions, for example disownership of one's hand in somatoparaphrenia (Vallar and Ronchi, 2009; Romano et al., 2014), desire for amputation in body integrity identity disorder (Sedda, 2011), unintended movements in alien hand syndrome (Della Sala et al., 1991), ownership for supernumerary limbs (Guterstam et al., 2011) or seeing own body from a third person perspective in out of body experiences (Blanke and Arzy, 2005). The illusory alterations of awareness of the bodily self can be also induced experimentally during the so-called " rubber hand illusion " —RHI (Botvinick and Cohen, 1998), where the subjective perceptual experience interfere with bodily self and the external bodily-shaped object is treated as part of the body. These clinical populations and experimental condition may challenge Kyselo's view, as bodily self could be disrupted despite a normal social self. However, an example of the complementarity of bodily and social self are patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). " The loss of self is inherent in the social isolation of paralytics, who have furthermore become separated from their bodies by neural damage, and from their former identities by society " (Murphy, 2001; p. 227). SCI can leave a part of the body insensible and immobile, leading to specific disorders in the mental representation of one's own body and the sense of bodily self (Lenggenhager et al., 2012, 2013). After SCI, patients see their former life slip away and become restricted, and the social implications can be considerable. They must adapt to their new body and make significant changes in the way they function in the world. Here …