Talk:Somatic theory

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What is it then?[edit]

Currently the introduction to this article simply states:

Somatic theory is a theory of human social behavior

Great, but this fails to provide any cogent introduction as to what this particular theory of social human behaviour actually is!

After the initial statement, the introduction sets out a chronology of its development and the sections that follow provide similarly fine-grained detail, all again without providing any overview or summary.

Could anyone who knows please insert some summaries here. I don't have time to do it today.

LookingGlass (talk) 10:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't help myself! I've just pasted the introductory line from the primary "this is based on" reference and tried to break the stream of "this is based upon" references. At least this means there is a self-contained introduction. However each of these internal references (at least) that appear in the introduction needs to be justified and cited appropriately. In my opinion it does not help the article to merely throw the names of everybody from Austin to Wittgenstein in, simply as statements that they're involved in some way.

LookingGlass (talk) 11:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two responses. First, as I noted in the edit line, reverting "that" to "which," the antecedent to "that" is "theory of social behavior," which is incorrect. All somatic theories summarized in the article are based on Damasio's somatic-marker hypothesis, WHICH "proposes a mechanism by which emotional processes can guide (or bias) behavior"--but not all somatic theories based on that hypothesis propose that mechanism. Both "that" and "which" are grammatically correct; only "which" is historically correct.

And second, I disagree that the introduction simply states that somatic theory is a theory of human social behavior. It says that it is a theory that is based on the work primarily of Damasio, secondarily of Kohut, Bowlby, and Schore. There's a big difference.

The reason it's important to leave the definition of somatic theory this open in the intro is that somatic theory is defined differently by different somatic theorists. What roughly unifies those different approaches is the grounding in Damasio mentioned in the intro.

The misreading that insists on finding a single unified core to somatic theory also leads to the mistaken notion that the three sections that follow are "fine-grained detail" that provides a "chronology of its development"--as if it were a unified theory. It's actually more like an umbrella theory. The individual somatic theories discussed in the three sections possess strong family resemblances--especially by reference to Damasio--but should not be summarized as instantiations of a single theory. Hong12kong (talk) 11:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Summary is awfully awkward[edit]

Hi. The summary of this theory (as do many in Wikipedia, misses the encumbrance of Somatic Theory... Maybe someone can work on that? Stevenmitchell (talk) 01:39, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]