ABSTRACT
Clinicians who treat children inevitably come into contact with food, not just thoughts of food or feelings about food or the meanings of food, but food itself. Some clinicians argue that food is not the proper currency of psychotherapy and that allowing or introducing it into an analytic treatment actually interferes with the work of experiencing, naming, and understanding thoughts and feelings. Sometimes people come to know the emotional hunger these children must bear by first knowing their physical hunger. The stability of David foster family, in particular the firm and loving stance of his foster mother, had done much to help David gain some control over his impulsive rages. No matter how strong the hunger pangs Dr. M experienced in response to the tantalizing aroma of Jimmy's food, they were "of the belly" and bearable. In The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver writes: "Hunger of the body is altogether different from the shallow, daily hunger of the belly.
