ABSTRACT
Chapter Nine, the ‘closed-circuit loop’, addresses the circular and perseverative thinking that complicates the lives of people with perseverant personalities and impacts their ability to self-regulate. Following the experiences of a bulimic patient, the chapter explores the intense sensitivity of perseverant individuals to their environment and the “objects” (literal and figurative) in it. Not unlike the hyper-focus on individual words seen in dyslexia, perseverant individuals may develop what the author calls “emotional/relational dyslexia”—a perseverative over-investment in the nature, nuance, and meaning of interpersonal modes of communication and relatedness. Engaging in what she further terms “relational rumination,” they have an intense desire to know, to read between the lines of meaning, to decode or deconstruct the emotional undercurrents of every interaction and communication. When finally overwhelmed by their circuitous efforts at deciphering undigestible or dysregulating situations or interactions on their own—be they positive or negative—the minds of perseverant individuals become flooded with ‘food thoughts’, replacing all usable thinking with the urgent need to eat. The chapter looks at research on perseveration, and highlights the rhythmic, repetitive, and solitary attempts at self-regulation that mirror the intensity of the perseverant individual’s “closed-circuit loop of psychic and somatic perseveration.”
