An Existentialist Approach to Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is an attempt of the self to refuse itself and devise an other self, with dissolution of the link between the self and the body. Although anorectics are often described as academically capable and attractive, in the author s experience they were preoccupied with superficial issues, their drive came not from the seductive promise of intellectual stimuli, but from negative expectations that needs cannot be met, driving one to rise above/outside of needs to “not need.” The new self, incorporeal and totally controlled, in its controlling part, is at times perceived as a separate it controlling the mind. The new self, that so much wanted to be in control, is out of control by being under the orders of the it; supposedly not greedy, it has found new object of greediness in weight loss. The anorectics feeling of “superiority” has relevant therapeutic implications.