The body as mediator of psychic funtions - Abstract

In the present work we attempt to deepen in the theoretical bases that the Historical Cultural Approach offers for body work as an alternative of therapeutic. In it, we examined how the body has been viewed by different systems throughout history and propose to see it as a sistem that lives in the time and space, interrelated with environment, is transformed by history and culture and accomplishes specific functions. Thus the body is a mediator of superior psychic functions because it is a bearer of assimilated meanings by man through the relative plasticity of the body, that interprets and translates the sociohistorical influences, restructuring new realities. The body possesses phisiological and psychological functions, that are dialecticaly interrelated and with the energetic changes of the corporal work achieves its balance and harmony.