Eating Disorders - fieldi

150 Young Adult Women
Many of our patients have been conditioned by well-intentioned
parents to believe that achievement and success in college—and in
life in general—is what life is all about. To achieve and to succeed in
today’s competitive world is no simple task. Because pleasing parents
is often paramount, these young women may find themselves pursuing
Mother’s unfulfilled dreams or substituting for Father’s unborn
son. A different conflict may surface for some young women: “How
can I possibly surpass Mom? I’d feel so guilty!” Dickstein (1989)
states, “The consequent frustration of denying their own, possibly
different, work, career and life-style goals can lead very directly to
swallowing anger along with food and then relieving resultant anxiety,
anger, and other personal problems by purging” (114). A patient
once said to me, “I’m so angry all the time; the only respectable way
I know to get rid of it is through the purge!” This occurred about six
months into her treatment with me. Since at the onset of her treatment
she was totally unaware of the rage within herself, I viewed this
as progress. Of course her future work continued to be the excruciating
and arduous task of being angry directly with the appropriate
sources, rather than with herself, and finding a constructive resolution
of that anger.
For these women caught up in this superwoman syndrome, thinness
equals perfection. It also represents being in control. “If I have
my thinness, I can cope,” say these women. “When all else goes
awry, when I feel confused and unable to deal with things around
me, I can look perfect; that is my protection; my suit of armor.” And
that is what it becomes—that is what protects and eventually isolates
these often lonely young women from life and living. When an individual
measures her self-worth by the numbers on a scale, it
becomes “thin at any price”—and the price can be very high—the
cost of her life.
An added feminist perspective to this country’s worship of thinness
in women cannot be overlooked and, I believe, must be seriously
considered. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf (1991) talks
about the very theme I see in my practice: successful, young
women obsessed with thinness. “America, which has the greatest
number of women who have made it into the male sphere, also
leads the world with female anorexia” (181). Wolf connects the
onset of the increase in women’s preoccupation with their weight