ABSTRACT
In this chapter on anorexia, Seligman shows that she is aware of the background in family and marital dynamics and how she works this into her analytical approach. The part played by the father and by siblings is therefore fully acknowledged alongside a more internal perspective.
In many respects, the paper serves as an introduction to the treatment of psychosomatic disorders generally. For in many or all of these, we can see what Seligman calls ‘metamorphosis in reverse’—a move from ‘the multi-faceted ostensibly somatic syndrome to its basic, primary emotional constituents in infancy.’
Though Seligman’s use of a teleological approach is implicit rather than explicit, the reader will see how, for her, any understanding of the aetiology of anorexic symptoms is bound up with a consideration of the unconscious purposiveness of the 72illness: what is the anorexic aiming at, desiring, trying to achieve?
A.S.
