Exploring Eating Disorders Through Psychoanalysis: Unravelling the Psyche
Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : August 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 296
- Category :
Psychoanalysis - Category 2 :
Forthcoming - Catalogue No : 98171
- ISBN 13 : 9781032724898
- ISBN 10 : 1032724897
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Exploring Eating Disorders through Psychoanalysis explores eating disorders as complex clinical conditions and uses psychoanalysis to explore the psychological factors behind them.
Humberto Persano considers several key factors including psychosexual aspects of the psyche, object relations, ego functioning and defence mechanisms, as well as family dynamics, attachments and the role of early childhood trauma. The book identifies the relationship between addictions, self-harm and impulsive behaviours for complex patients as essential in the continuation of treatment and assesses specific treatments like transference-focused therapy and mentalization-based approaches. Persano also outlines future challenges and lines of research for eating disorders and their treatment.
Exploring Eating Disorders through Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychiatrists working with eating disorders.
Reviews and Endorsements
An essential read for anyone interested in eating disorders, this book delivers exactly what its title promises. Persano challenges the current trend toward fragmented or polarized thinking, masterfully integrating the depth of psychoanalytic understanding, clinical precision, and a keen analysis of the sociocultural dynamics that shape body image today. Using psychoanalysis as a transformative tool, it offers a treatment framework that bridges biological, psychological, and social disciplines, as well as individual and collective healing, providing a comprehensive and enlightening perspective. Truly indispensable.
Ricardo Bernardi, MD, Senior Psychiatrist; Phd, Psychology, University of Buenos Aires; Emeritus Professor, School of Medicine University of Uruguay; Full Member, Academy of Medicine of Uruguay; Full Member, IPA; Honorary Member, Uruguayan Society of Psychoanalysis; Associate Editor for Latin America, IJPA
It is the rare clinician who grasps the multiple essences of the Eating Disorders. In this work, Humberto Persano shares with us his many decades of immersion in these patients’ hidden turmoil that derives from multiple developmental levels and genetic factors. He helps us see how patients’ struggles with food-related symptoms are a proxy for their affective instability, inchoate desires, familial misattunement and only knowing themselves through the imagined eyes of others. We learn how their character rigidity, while deemed a virtue, hides their feared vulnerabilities and imaginings. He outlines specific treatment techniques that are built upon the therapist’s ability to maintain the patient’s hope for their future. He offers us both guidelines and inspiration to remain dedicated to this challenging journey.
Harvey Schwartz, MD; IPA in Health, Chair; Training Analyst, Psychoanalytic Association of New York and Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia; host, IPA Podcast Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch
The present volume is the best text on eating disorders from a psychoanalytic perspective that I have encountered. While paying adequate attention to neurobiological and hormonal influences, the major emphasis is on etiological features derived from psychogenic causes. The clarity and depth of the description of clinical reality facilitates the direct application of these understandings to concrete individual cases.
Otto F. Kernberg, M.D. Professor Emeritus, Weill Cornell Medical College. Training and Supervising Analyst, Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research. Honorary Vice-President of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA)
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Historical Context of Eating Disorders
3. Clinical manifestations of eating disorders
4. Psychoanalytic Theory and Eating Disorders
5. Unconscious Dynamics of Eating Disorders
6. Early Development and Family Dynamics
7. Transference and Countertransference
8. Dream Analysis and Imagery in Eating Disorder Treatment
9. Treatment Approaches in Psychoanalytic Therapy
10. Beyond the Individual: Sociocultural Factors in Eating Disorders
11. Integration and Future Directions
Epilogue
Conclusion - The Journey Towards Healing
About the Author(s)
Humberto Lorenzo Persano is a psychiatrist at the School of Medicine in the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a professor of Mental Health and Psychiatry, and Psychology of Nutrition as well as holding the position of Director of the Institute of Clinical Psychiatry and Mental Health. He is a member of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association, and a training analyst and supervising and child and adolescent psychoanalyst at the IPA.
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