Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders When Words Fail and Bodies Speak

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 all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists working with this complex and multi-faceted phenomenon.

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, CEDS PART I. Conceptualization of eating disorders 1. Psychodynamic improvement in eating disorders: welcoming ignored, unspoken, and neglected concerns in the patient to foster development and resiliency Kathryn J. Zerbe, MD, FAED and Dana A. Satir, PhD, CEDS 2. Invisibility and insubstantiality in an anorexic adolescent: phenomenology and dynamics Mary Brady, PhD 3. Primary interactions and eating disorders:a psychoanalytic perspective Antonella Granieri, PhD 4. An island entire of itself: narcissism in anorexia nervosa Anthony P. Winston, PhD 5. The dead third in the treatment of an adolescent with anorexia nervosa Lorraine Caputo, LCSW PART II: Treatment of eating disorders 6. From knowing to discovering: some suggestions for work with an anorexic patient Yael Kadish, PhD 7. Heathen talk: psychoanalytic considerations of eating disorders and the dissociated self Judith Brisman, PhD 8. To know another inside and out: linking psychic and somatic experience in eating disorders Danielle Novack, Ph.D. 9. On targeting emotion regulation deficits in eating disorders through defense analysis Timothy Rice, M.D. 10. Eating disorders, impaired mentalization, and attachment: implications for child and adolescent family treatment Starr Kelton-Locke, PhD PART III: Contemporary issues related to eating disorders 11. The low spark of high-heeled 'girls': hyperdeadness and Hyperawareness witheating-disordered patients Jean Petrucelli, PhD 12. Psychodynamic importance of "cyber" and "in the flesh" friends in psychotherapy with college-aged adolescents with eating disorders F. Diane Barth, LCSW 13. The enigma of ana:a psychoanalytic exploration of pro-anorexia Internet forums Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, CEDS 14. Towards social justice: the continuum of eating and body image problems: how social and psychological realities converge into an embodied epidemic Susan Gutwill, MSW, LCSW 15. Enduring perfectionism: seeing through eating disorder recovery and America’s cultural complex Kim L. Grynick, LPC

Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, CEDS, is Chair in the Department of Psychology at Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA,and an Executive Director at the National Association for Males with Eating Disorders. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on topics such as eating disorders, masculinity, technology, and psychoanalytic treatment. His first book, Understanding Anorexia Nervosa in Males: An Integrative Approach, was published by Routledge in 2016. He is an advanced candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and has a private practice in Berkeley, CA.