The Dragon Mother of Anorexics

In a 1999 article in the Journal Of Group Analysis Marissa Dillon Weston found in her Anorexic patients that they are dominated by fantasies of persecution by their needy devouring mother of infancy who cannot let her child go because she needs them for her own psychic survival. Giving her child the impossible task of filling her limitless void so the child fears being eaten alive.

To prevent this when these children grow up and try to individuate they refuse to eat so they won't have any flesh on them for the dragon mother to devour. Which might explain why anorexics feel free and in control when they are starving themselves. Anyone here have similiar fantasies?

Heya,

That's what I call looking too far into something. There is a much simpler explanation as to why people are Anorexic and it is likely to be just a coincidence that the majority of Anorexics she studied shared this same trait.


However, I am a firm believer that tackling an eating disorder directly is never the way to recovery. The way to recovery is by tackling it indirectly - i.e. Altering their perception of the world, and/or sorting out other things in their lives such as a mother that wants her child to grow in a way that the child DOESN'T want to grow.

Kev.

Jaysoncur

Wow That is a bit much of a fantasy. I've dealt with anorexia for about 37 yrs. From what I have learned about anorexia you have to be willing to probe the deeper issues which are manifesting themselves as anorexia. Such as depression, low self esteem, body dysmorphic disorder...etc

Sweetngentle

Everyone who has been abused suffers to some degree from depression, low self esteem and other issues that are triggered by individuation or anuthing that resembles the abuse they suffered and they try to deal with this anxiety in different ways based on the type of childhood traumas they suffered. What this article suggests is that anorexics becausae they were engulfed so severely as infants by their lonely needy mothers and were not allowed to individuate built up a fantasy as a defense to deal with this specific trauma.

Which could be the root source of their anorexia compounded by the other kinds of mistreatments they suffered as infants and later on in childhood. To understand why people have certain disorders and personality issues you have to know what kind of fantasies are in their heads and how they developed. No matter how strange or unrealistic they sound to someone else who doesn't share them. That's why they are called fantasies. Not everone develops anorexia even though they were abused so maybe anorexics were abused in different ways and more severely which caused them to think differently about their bodies.

Did you know preverbal infants imagine they store their painful memories in certain body parts and create and alter in their brain to store these traumas along with the defensive fantasies that go with them? which might be another clue to Anorexia and even Body Dysmorphic disorder which both deal with distortions/fantasies of the body and are also commonly linked.

jaysoncur wrote:To understand why people have certain disorders and personality issues you have to know what kind of fantasies are in their heads and how they developed. No matter how strange or unrealistic they sound to someone else who doesn't share them.

I am beginning to understand your points more clearly now, and that one I have just quoted is so true. Issues aren't always tackled that way though, are they - What do you think? Counsellors, psychologists, and even some therapists usually take direct approaches to solving problems thereby leaving the underlying problem lurking still. This is perhaps why many people visit psychologists / therapists for their entire life: Because they are never properly treated.

jaysoncur wrote:Did you know preverbal infants imagine they store their painful memories in certain body parts...

Forgive me but I do not understand what a preverbal infant is. The World Wide Web doesn't appear to have much sources on it either.


Kevin.

There are many different therapies out there though not all deal with deep underlying fantasies. Some just deal with your cognitive processes that change your thinking which can help but don't probe the deeper layers like psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Preverbal period is from birth to 12 months they can't talk only babble they also internalize trauma differently.