Adornment as a Method of Interior Design

Abstract

In this essay, predominant psychoanalytic perspectives on the meanings and functions of bodily adornment are interrogated from a feminist perspective. An argument for theorizing the prolonged, if not perpetual, utility of surface-sensory experience to ongoing personal development, continuing into adulthood, is posited. Through a discussion of the properties of the skin, a claim for understanding experience that takes place at the skin surface in adult intersubjective engagement is developed. A case vignette is presented that chronicles the operationalization of these hypotheses.