The locus of emotion has always been sought, yet never found. But,
through advances in neuro-imaging, we are being provided with the means to
bring the opacity of our emotions under scrutiny, and to eventual transparency.
By example, such a scanning technology being employed is positron emission
tomography (PET).9 This powerful form of scanning is proving a
powerful diagnostic tool that is having a major impact on the diagnosis and
treatment of disease in general. Since disease is a metabolic process, and PET
is a metabolic imaging examination, PET can detect and stage most cancers often
before they are evident through other tests. PET can give physicians important
early information about disease in general and neurological disorders, like
Alzheimer's disease, in particular.
Prior to such technological advances, the endeavours of medicine to
pinpoint our emotions might be regarded as a fumbling around in the chaos of
some transitional zone. A transitional zone shrouded by the umbrella of
mystery; the mystery of the essential self, the soul, the mind. Now, many
enigmatic aspects of human nature - such as caprice, innovation and creativity,
all which have bearings on our performance - are being revealed through the
body. This concentration on the primacy of the body is valid for someone like Burr, (2000) who
argues, “We experience the world through our body and not through language for
we live in the material world and are not observers of it.” (Social
Constructionism p.120) 10
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