ABSTRACT
To look at anorexia nervosa as essentially a physiological disturbance, a purely psychological one or simply as a sociologically explainable phenomenon, is to miss the chance of understanding anorexia as a metaphor of our times – an especially poignant statement of the way that the predicaments of life in late twentieth-century capitalism can be experienced by the individual woman. An important aspect of the ideology of psychotherapy is a presumed capacity on the part of the analyst to see the psychology of the analysand, undistorted by the prejudices that the analyst herself carries. The emaciated state of the woman may alarm and frighten the therapist; the anorectic woman rarely presents herself for therapy with an optimistic attitude; the literature is replete with the prejudice that it is notoriously difficult to 'treat' anorexia. The prejudicial attitudes that frequently obstruct the development of this compassionate stance arise, in part, from the pain experienced by the practitioner working with the anorectic woman.
