Image, imagination, constructing gender through visual representation in search for the ideal

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Adams, Tessa. 2003. Image, imagination, constructing gender through visual representation in search for the ideal. European Journal of Psychotherapy Counselling & Health, 6(4), pp. 317-326. ISSN 13642537 [Article]

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Official URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rej...

Abstract or Description

This paper addresses the unconscious manifestations of our image consciousness in securing our allegiances to belief systems and the rhetoric of social exchange. It demonstrates, by way of discussion, how visual representation inscribes the human subject in gendered terms. It asks what we 'see' of the other within the consulting room, maintaining that we are preoccupied with assumptions surrounding appearance (including that of our own) that reinforce stereotypathy. Attention is given to the problematic that visual descriptors of gender specificity charge the countertransference which are rarely fully interpreted. A proposition is established, namely that, while attentions to issues of gender within the consulting room focus primarily on 'object choice' and 'gender confusion', there remains a paucity of deliberation on the fact that we have a body and that it is imaged; the co-ordinates of which serve a subliminal dialogue that is ever present on a day to day basis.

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Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/1364253042000281333