Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak offers a compilation of some of the most innovative thinking on psychoanalytic approaches to the treatment of eating disorders available today. In its recognition of the multiple meanings of food, weight, and body shape, psychoanalytic thinking is uniquely positioned to illuminate the complexities of these often life-threatening conditions. And while clinicians regularly draw on psychoanalytic ideas in the treatment of eating disorders, many of the unique insights psychoanalysis provides have been neglected in the contemporary literature. This volume brings together some of the most respected clinicians in the field and speaks to the psychoanalytic conceptualization and treatment of eating disorders as well as contemporary issues, including social media, pro-anorexia forums, and larger cultural issues such as advertising, fashion, and even agribusiness. Drawing on new theoretical developments, several chapters propose novel models of treatment, whereas others delve into the complex convergence of culture and psychology in this patient population. Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders will be of interest to allpsychoanalysts and psychotherapists working with this complex and multi-faceted phenomenon.

This book will help therapists understand and treat patients suffering from mild to dangerous forms of eating disorders, other compulsions and addictions, such as alcoholism, and even erotic attachments. The chapters help therapists think creatively about these types of patients who are coming to therapy more frequently than ever, and to see the effects of treatment. The problems that arise in therapy are explored in essays about dissociation, self-regulation, self-destructive behavior, enactment, and other clinical issues. The first half of the book addresses specific problems associated with patients who have eating disorders. The editors explore the patient's conflicts, affect regulation, transference, behavior, as well as the countertransference issues that inevitably arise in therapy. The second half broadens the scope and addresses a spectrum of addictions and associated issues such as creativity, sexuality and the transference.

Nobody ever really eats alone. We must all negotiate the voice of our culture and its contradictory messages about food and the body. These cultural imperatives especially confuse and burden women as they struggle with the insidious power of the diet culture and current demands about body size and shape. In this insightful analysis of an treatment guide for eating problems, the authors develop a clinically useful theory of how society's injunctions about the “right” body and the “right” diet become inscribed in patients and join with their intrapsychic emotional life. By merging their theory of the internalization of culture (and feminist critique of that culture) with an object relations and interpersonal psychoanalytic theory, the authors deliver for all therapists a powerful therapeutic model, one honed by twenty years of practice at the Women's Therapy Centre Institute.Many treatments for eating problems make controlling the symptom their goal; this book demonstrates that this approach merely reproduces in the patient the loss of agency created by internalized messages from a fat-phobic society. Only by understanding the symptom as an expression of the confluence of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and cultural experience can the therapist help the patient learn to live in peace in her body. The authors present a psychodynamic understanding of hunger, satiation, food, and body image, and show how everyday body/self and eating experiences contain and reveal the essential dynamics of the person. They also describe how these dynamics, as well as the influences of consumer culture, affect transference and countertransference in treatment.A thoughtful discussion of the convergence of eating problems and sexual abuse extends the existing theory about how consumer culture injures women and aggravates the wounds of abuse. It also details the tremendous value of this feminist psychoanalytic treatment model for helping people with dissociative problems, including multiple personality disorder.Illustrated with rich case vignettes, this practical guide will show clinicians how to use an anti-diet, anti-deprivation model of treatment to help patients learn to feed themselves in tune with their psychic and bodily needs.

Food for Thought offers fresh psychoanalytic insights into treating clients with eating disorders. In lively and jargon-free language, Nina Savelle-Rocklin breaks down the psychoanalytic approach to give practitioners and general readers alike a deeper understanding of the theory and effective treatment of eating disorders. Those living with eating disorders often use food to express their inner feelings, and Savelle-Rocklin illustrates the importance of the therapeutic relationship in uncovering the nature of these internal emotions, and formulating them into words. Through an intensive and mutual process, clients can begin to understand the language of the eating disorder, identify and work through its underlying conflicts, ultimately eliminating symptoms, relieving distress, and transforming the way they relate to themselves and others. Thoughtful and highly engaging, Food for Thought provides invaluable methods for practitioners treating patients with eating disorders to achieve lasting change and true healing.

This groundbreaking two-volume handbook provides a comprehensive collection of evidence-based analyses of the causes, treatment, and prevention of eating disorders. A two-volume handbook featuring contributions from an international group of experts, and edited by two of the leading authorities on eating disorders and body image research Presents comprehensive coverage of eating disorders, including their history, etiological factors, diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment Tackles controversies and previously unanswered questions in the field Includes coverage of DSM-5 and suggestions for further research at the end of each chapter 2 Volumes

Bringing psychoanalytic thought up-to-date, the volume features articles by clinicians recognized as having made significant contributions to the treatment and understanding of these perplexing disorders. They cover a wide array of topics that capture the full variety of types of patients and issues that arise in treatment.

This book presents an implementation of psychodynamic self psychology in the treatment of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, using a theoretical and therapeutic approach to examine the way that patients turn to food consumption or avoidance in order to supply needs they do not believe can be provided by human beings. The book starts with an overview of self psychology, presenting both the theory of self psychology and its specific application for the etiology and treatment of eating disorders. Featuring contributions from eating disorder professionals, the book then integrates this theory with 16 compelling case studies to explore how the eating-disordered patient is scared to take up space in a society that encourages precisely that. Professionals in the field of psychotherapy for eating disorders, as well as the entire community of psychotherapists, will benefit from the empirical capability of the theory to predict the development as well as remission from eating disorders.