Growing up a self: on the relation between body image and the experience of the interoceptive body

Experimental research on self-recognition has largely focused on four different populations: human infants, non-human primates, neurotypical adults, and neuropsychiatric patients. Across these populations, the question has been on the mechanisms that may enable an explicit form of recognizing one’s own image or appearance. At the same time, research in this area has recognized the fact that the other side of the embodiment, not that of the seen body but that of the felt body, has been largely ignored, both in the adult literature and more so in developmental studies. This chapter reviews relevant, but scarce, evidence on the relation between interoceptively and exteroceptively driven body awareness in early life and adulthood and puts forward a framework that articulates how we grow a self from the inside-out, with important implications for our understanding of body image and emotional awareness.