ABSTRACT
Anyone with an eating disorder assuredly has had prob-lematic relationships within the family of origin, both during the course of his or her development and in current family interactions. Whether one is a parent dealing with an eating-disordered child or a therapist working with this child and his or her family, relationships will inevitably be fraught with issues of control, questions regarding intervention, and anxieties that permeate the very physical being of each person involved. These often overwhelming anxieties, struggles for intra-and interpersonal control, awareness-and disavowal-of one's presence vis-a-vis the other shift seamlessly back and forth in any relationship. There are few arenas in which these kinds of issues are more urgent than in relationships where concerns about anorexia, bulimia, or compulsive binge eating prevail.
