Eating Disorders - fieldi

5
Relationship to Food
as to the World
suzan j. ryan
Food—consuming it, restricting it, hating it, loving it—what does it
mean? What is the “food obsession” about for people who suffer
from an eating disorder? Their relationship to food can be viewed as
a metaphor for how they connect to the world. Linguists have long
maintained that one constructs one’s world through organizing
thought in language. Thus the language in which one frames one’s
therapeutic interpretations has tremendous importance. The
metaphor chosen to connect experiences that the patient knows with
experiences that are effectively cut off, unknown to the patient, must
be meaningful.
As a therapist, in order to understand my patients, I must
immerse myself in the food connection. I must try to grasp the
meaning of my patient’s fear through food imagery. For example,
patients often say that they are afraid of many foods. Labels, they tell