Eating Disorders - fieldi

Young Adult Women 149
to surface and present in treatment as young women battle the
demands of the nineties—the “Superwoman Syndrome.” As they
look to their futures, young women feel driven to have all and be
all—and in so doing they must deal with the realities of competing
with Mom, Dad, husband/lover, and peers—both male and female.
Some are terrified; some are energized. Some want to attempt to
meet the challenge head on; some want to flee from it. Trying to
be a superwoman requires working toward goals nearly impossible
to attain. The mass media has promoted an image of the woman
who is able to “do it all”—be the perfect lover, mother, and career
performer. The operative word here is perfect. To get it right for a
young woman suffering from an eating disorder, it all has to be
perfect. As though this were not impossible enough, coupled with
being “competent, sexy, and nurturant,” she must be thin (Gordon
1989, 47). The complete extraordinary package includes thinness,
as that, I believe, exhibits the ultimate control. “Bulimic [and I
would add anorexic] women present an exaggerated picture of
what has become a common dilemma among contemporary female
college students: that of integrating values of achievement and
mastery with an underlying self-concept that is defined in terms of
nurturance, physical attractiveness, and an entwinement of one’s
own identity with relationship to others” (Gordon 1989, 46).
Many of today’s young women are in conflict: on the one hand trying
to be a hard-working achiever, which often includes being
competitive—sometimes with men; on the other hand, feeling the
pull toward the older, more traditional role of the female—subservient
and care-taking with regard to men and family. To deal
with both sides of this conflict as she strives to get it all perfect, the
eating disorder becomes the coping mechanism. Whereas Jones
(1985) refers to the personality organization of the bulimic as the
“false-self,” I choose to broaden the concept to include the
anorexic young woman as well. Further, I liken the personality of
a young woman suffering from an eating disorder to the image of
a chameleon—one who changes her colors to suit the circumstance
of the moment—to fit in at all costs—to blend. It is the work of the
therapist and individual together to find the one true color—the
one that can ultimately be worn with ease at all times, in all circumstances:
the “color” of the person within.