Aug 16, 2024: Faculty in the News – Tom Wooldridge

In this podcast Tom Wooldridge, PsyD and David Puder, MD discuss eating disorders.

Introduction: While psychoanalysis has a long history of engaging with eating disorders, the contemporary field of eating disorders treatment and research has lost sight of its contributions. As I have written elsewhere, I am repeatedly struck by how little the psychoanalytic sensibility infuses eating disorders advocacy, treatment, and research. There are good reasons for this, including the overly reductive claims that psychoanalysts have made about the etiology of eating disorders, the neglect of the importance of family involvement for children and adolescent patients, the need for a larger, multidisciplinary treatment team, and the urgency of weight restoration, when possible, for malnourished patients. In an effort to correct for these failings, however, field may have gone too far, at times focusing solely on symptoms and, thereby, neglecting the complex emotional life of the patient and how the patient’s psychology shapes his or her symptomatic expression.

Therapists who work with eating disorders often hear stories about the crushing impact of multigenerational criticism about weight, body type, and appearance. Our patients speak to us about the multiple meanings of food, weight, and body shape and about how these meanings are embedded in complex familial and cultural systems. As we listen, we try to understand and emotionally resonate with the deep anguish our patients convey. Perhaps, I have often thought, our field’s emphasis on rapid symptom reduction signifies not only our intent to help as quickly as possible, but also our need to evade confrontation with profound emotional pain. This, of course, may foreclose a fuller empathic immersion in our patients’ lives and our understanding of each patient as a multidimensional person, which, in my view, is central to effective psychotherapy.

Listen to the Podcast and Read the Article: Eating Disorders