The rhetorical limits of the “plastic body”

Jordan, John W.

doi:10.1080/0033563042000255543

Cited by 38 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…On occasion, they mark their unwillingness to proceed with a patient. Faced with the dangers of litigation, they also must act as gatekeepers of surgery (Gimlin, 2000;Mirivel, 2007) by assessing patients' psychological suitability for surgery (Jordan, 2004). In short, it would be premature to assume that plastic surgeons' sole communicative goal is to secure patients for surgery.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Physical Examination in Cosmetic Surgery: Communication Strategies to Promote the Desirability of Surgery

Mirivel

2008

Health Communication

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Cosmetic surgery is a controversial medical practice that is rapidly expanding in the United States. In 2004 alone, 9.2 million procedures were performed. From breast augmentation to tummy tuck, Americans are taking surgical/medical/health risks to alter their bodily appearance. Although many scholars have criticized the practice, few have looked closely at how plastic surgeons interact with prospective surgical candidates. This essay explores videotaped data of naturally occurring interactions between plastic surgeons and patients seeking to transform their physical appearance. Drawing on action-implicative discourse analysis (Tracy, 2005), the article describes plastic surgeons' embodied and discursive activities during a typical physical examination. The core analysis shows how the patient's body and its aesthetic features can be used by plastic surgeons as interpretive resources to promote the desirability of surgery. By touching excess tissue, pinching it, moving it, or applying tools and artifacts (e.g., tape measurer) on and around the body, plastic surgeons literally bring to life patients' bodily "flaws." Through their multimodal performance, I argue, plastic surgeons mark the desirability of surgical transformation. As medicine meets consumerism, medical activities turn persuasive, incrementally constructing the patient's body as a territory of surgical need.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Physical Examination in Cosmetic Surgery: Communication Strategies to Promote the Desirability of Surgery

Mirivel

2008

Health Communication

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“…The seventh and most recent edition was published in 2011 (WPATH 2011). 16. Evaluating patients' readiness for surgery is central to the treatment practice of plastic surgeons performing elective cosmetic interventions (Hudson 2014;Jordan 2004;Mirivel 2007), but the particular kind of evaluation required in transgender surgeries is frequently construed as outside their expertise. The complicated relationship between mental health providers who approve trans-patients' readiness for surgery, the surgeons who perform the procedures, and the letters of recommendation that mediate these dynamics and serve as the material bridge between specialties is the focus of considerable critical analysis (see Budge and Dickey 2017;Coolhart et al 2008;Roller et al 2015).…”

Section: Public Coverage Viamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Capable Surgeon and a Willing Electrologist: Challenges to the Expansion of Transgender Surgical Care in the United States

Plemons

2019

Med Anthropol Q

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Since 2014, public and private insurance coverage for transgender Americans’ surgical care has increased exponentially. Training clinicians and equipping institutions to meet the surge in demand has not been as rapid. Through ethnographic research at a surgical workshop focused on trans‐ genital reconstruction and in a U.S. hospital working to grow its transgender health program, this article shows that effects of the decades‐long insurance exclusion of trans‐ surgery are not easily remedied through the recent event of its inclusion because patient access is not the only thing that has been restricted by coverage denial. Decades of excluding coverage for trans‐ genital reconstructive surgery have limited the development and circulation of technical skills required to perform these procedures, as well as the administrative processes needed to integrate them into existing clinical workflows. One surgeon estimates that turning expanded access into realized care is “a five or six‐year problem.”

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“…Bodily self-consciousness is continuously shaped by culture-bound norms regarding body appearance and the tolerated extent to which this appearance may be modified (Jordan, 2004). A full understanding of non-psychotic individuals’ feeling of “being in the wrong body” and their desire to correct the mismatch between body and self by massive modifications of the prototypical, four-limbed corporeal morphology can only be reached by respecting the crosstalk between brain, mind, and society (Figure 1; notably also applying to related alterations of bodily self-consciousness; see Giummarra et al, 2011a, for review).…”

Section: Xenomelia Spectrum Disorders: Integrating Brain Mind and Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Xenomelia: A Social Neuroscience View of Altered Bodily Self-Consciousness

Brugger¹,

Lenggenhager²,

Giummarra³

2013

Front. Psychol.

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Xenomelia, the “foreign limb syndrome,” is characterized by the non-acceptance of one or more of one’s own extremities and the resulting desire for elective limb amputation or paralysis. Formerly labeled “body integrity identity disorder” (BIID), the condition was originally considered a psychological or psychiatric disorder, but a brain-centered Zeitgeist and a rapidly growing interest in the neural underpinnings of bodily self-consciousness has shifted the focus toward dysfunctional central nervous system circuits. The present article outlays both mind-based and brain-based views highlighting their shortcomings. We propose that full insight into what should be conceived a “xenomelia spectrum disorder” will require interpretation of individual symptomatology in a social context. A proper social neuroscience of xenomelia respects the functional neuroanatomy of corporeal awareness, but also acknowledges the brain’s plasticity in response to an individual’s history, which is lived against a cultural background. This integrated view of xenomelia will promote the subfield of consciousness research concerned with the unity of body and self.

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The rhetorical limits of the “plastic body”

Cited by 38 publications

References 0 publications

The Physical Examination in Cosmetic Surgery: Communication Strategies to Promote the Desirability of Surgery

The Physical Examination in Cosmetic Surgery: Communication Strategies to Promote the Desirability of Surgery

A Capable Surgeon and a Willing Electrologist: Challenges to the Expansion of Transgender Surgical Care in the United States

Xenomelia: A Social Neuroscience View of Altered Bodily Self-Consciousness

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