Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders Quotes

“Sadly, fierce in-group/out-group biases live within the eating disorder complex, generating and sustaining an ethical code of the culture as girls and women project their shadow upon one another. Individuals with anorexia secretly scorn those who struggle with bulimia or binge eating, those with bulimia and binge eating feel gross, often “wishing to be anorexic,” yet detesting their slim sisters with vicious jealousy. A callous hierarchy is formed, with anorexia as the ideal; bulimia, as a very distant underworld second; and binge eating, clearly at the bottom of acceptability.”
― Tom Wooldridge, Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak

“The other factor that may contribute to such a situation is a father who is unable to interpose himself between mother and child. He is therefore unable to introduce an awareness of external reality, which would enable both mother and daughter to recognise that there is a world outside their relationship and that the state of primary maternal preoccupation (Winnicott, 1956) cannot continue forever.”
― Tom Wooldridge, Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak