ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a case of how complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects body perception and body image and illustrates a client’s experience in treatment who had become ‘dis-embodied’ following early childhood traumatic experience. This chapter illustrates the chronic effects of cPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder) on body perception and body image. The author’s field of investigation in the last several years has focused on the effects of trauma, with particular attention to sexual abuse, and on the perception and representation of one’s body under those circumstances; a specific aspect of embodied experience that, for the purpose of this chapter, will be referred to as dis-embodiment. Sexual abuse is a specific type of trauma, with a high degree of complexity, since it involves a person’s most significant relationships in a deep way. It strongly influences a person’s psychological and existential development, the ability to stay in this world and build intimate connections with oneself and other people.
