ABSTRACT
To discuss the clinical material on obesity this chapter draws upon three theoretical points Robert W. Levenson, 1991 makes about the detailed inquiry: "collection of data", "holes in Swiss cheese", and "the quintessential analytic event". The chapter explores the way these three aspects of the detailed inquiry of therapeutic relationship lead up to the quintessential analytic event as it developed in obesity treatment. Janet Tintner describes the obesity using one of his patients Perdita. Increasingly, almost imperceptibly, the focus of the detailed inquiry shifted away from food towards what was being kept out of awareness. Data collection, which is the focus for food diaries, food logs, or food plans, is so pervasively in use by behaviorists, commercial weight-loss programs, as well as interpersonal analysts and online tracking programs, that it is virtually ubiquitous. The chapter concludes by discussing ramifications for the treatment of obesity.
