Holli is a prominent body-image specialist who’s contribution to the conversation on the impact of body image is wide-ranging. Her participation in governmental organisations, activist groups, public forums, print, radio, and television media outlets, as well as through her private therapy practice in London is raising awareness of body image and provides a platform for girls to begin to understand their relationship with their own bodies and to ultimately live comfortably in them. Her insight and experience is helping drive change at a national level so that body image education becomes part of a bigger conversation.
We were born upside down, photograph by Aleksandra Karpowicz
Body image is defined as how we see our physical selves and how that impacts us emotionally. Appearance and its impact on self-esteem has always existed but with the rise of social media, this problem is more tenuous than ever (Steiner-Adair, 2013).
- Body image is a subjective experience; how we feel about the way we look. This process and self-belief system has an insidious way of establishing itself. Consciously or unconsciously, it affects not only the self, but these messages get transmitted very early on, to the next generation.
- This intergenerational transmission of body image comes through in the established thoughts and behaviours of mother. Her early thoughts, sometimes whilst baby is still in utero, may impact on her capacity to bond with baby in the early days and consequently, in how the relationship between mother and baby forms and develops (Orbach & Rubin, 2014).
- Beyond the theory, in my clinical practice as a psychotherapist, I help patients work through these problems. The duality of the mind and body connection, the shifting nature of accommodating the constant change between our external and internal worlds. How we negotiate comfort within our own skin.
- We see in Karpowicz’s couple only a thin veil of clothing loosely covering their bodies, there exists minimal separation between the internal and external worlds. They are exposed. Vulnerable. Practically naked. As the veil and the armour we wear to cover and protect ourselves breaks down, we can fall apart. In therapy, when we are exposed, we then can begin to work in what lies beneath. Healing happens as this integration of who we expose to the world and who we authentically are that allows us to feel whole.
- Working first with mother or both parents helps to focus on and understand their own body image. By understanding first their own feelings about their physical selves, this can enlighten their parenting and have a profound effect on their relationship with their child. The couple, holding hands and the mother carrying baby, shows connection. Moving from the safety of the couple, ‘two’, to accommodating baby, now ‘three’, is frightening. This fear, shown especially through the man’s face, of the unknown and what the parents feel as they embark on uncharted territory. It is, however, certain that this baby will carry hopes and dreams of both parents and prior generations.
- Giving baby a positive start in life is what every mother wants to do. To equip her with the tools to enable that beginning is helpful. Often, the goal of the therapy is reparative; to attempt to narrow the gap between mother and child in order to foster a healthy life long relationship between them (Winnicott, 1960).
