ABSTRACT
The accepted technological approach to treatment of an eating disorder patient with psychophysiologic symptoms is a team approach to medical care, with each member of the team focusing on one aspect of the patient’s illness. Technological medical care leads caretakers to conceptualize physical and behavioral symptoms as disease, while overlooking the level of emotional development of the patient; the unconscious meaning of the patient’s words, actions, and somatic processes are also ignored. Conflicts remain unresolved and actively contribute to symptoms. The therapeutic alliance was defined and consolidated during the first year of treatment. It was not an alliance designed to control symptoms, but an alliance designed to understand the emotional meanings of the patient’s verbal and somatic expressions. In contrast, in a developmental approach, the unconscious meaning of the patient’s actions and words are interpreted, thereby placing the focus of treatment on the emotional processes of the patient, not on control of symptoms.
