Dr. McHugh does not doubt that those under the sway of an overvalued idea are suffering real distress. What he doubts is that they have accurately located its source. An anorexic, for instance, often becomes taken with the notion that if she simply lost more weight she would at last be happy with her body. But in fact, she’ll never get there—not by starving herself, at any rate. Pursued this way, happiness will forever be like the beach ball caught in a current, always bobbing out of reach. No amount of subtracted weight will deliver the bodily comfort the anorexic seeks because her weight was
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