Exploring Feeding Difficulties in Children: The Generosity of Acceptance

262 Pages·2003·0.52 MB·English

by  Gianna Polacco Williams

THE GENEROSITY OF
ACCEPTANCE
Volume II

THE GENEROSITY OF
ACCEPTANCE
Volume II
Understanding Eating Difficulties in
Adolescents
Edited by
Gianna Williams, Paul Williams,
Jane Desmarais, & Kent Ravenscroft
KARNAC
LONDON NEWYORK
First published in 2003 by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd.
6 Pembroke Buildings, London NW10 6RE
Copyright © 2003 by Gianna Williams, Paul Williams, Jane Desmarais, and
Kent Ravenscroft
The rights of the editors and contributors to be identified as the authors of this
work have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright
Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 1-85575-934-9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Edited, designed, and produced by Communication Crafts
Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, www.biddles.co.uk
www.karnacbooks.com
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS ix
INTRODUCTION xiii
CHAPTER ONE
“Who’s that girl?”
An anorexic girl’s search for identity and fear of
contamination by the damaged (internal) parental couple
Sue Brough 1
CHAPTER TWO
Eating disorders in adolescence: the function of receiving
Luisa Carbone Tirelli 29
CHAPTER THREE
Paula’s secret: an adolescent with bulimia
Kent Ravenscroft 51
v
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
The uncovering of a lack of identity
Roberta Mondadori 83
CHAPTER FIVE
“I didn’t want to die, but I had to”:
the pervasive refusal syndrome
Jeanne Magagna 107
CHAPTER SIX
Some reflections on the processes of projection
and introjection in eating disorders
Emanuela Quagliata 139
CHAPTER SEVEN
An anorexic girl’s relationship to
a very damaged persecutory internal object
and its impact on her illness
Hélène Dubinsky 175
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fantasies concerning body functioning
in an anorexic adolescent
Diomira Petrelli 195
REFERENCES 229
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T
he editors would like to give special thanks to Lyndsay
Macdonald for her invaluable work on the two volumes,
and to Holly Barton, John Shaw, and Jessica Sully for their
assistance with preparing the typescripts and proofs. We would
also like to mention Andrea Chandler, at the Library of the Institute
of Psychoanalysis, for her cheerful assistance with last-minute
references.
vii

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Sue Brough is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist em-
ployed by Solihull PCT. Her interests are working with children and
adolescents with eating disorders and their families, and she is presently
temporarily seconded into Sure Start where she is able to observe the
emerging difficulties in the infant–parent relationship which may later
develop into an eating disorder.
Jane Desmarais is Lecturer in English and Art History, working in
the departments of English & Comparative Literature and History
at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of
The Beardsley Industry (Ashgate, 1998) and author and editor of
other books, essays, and articles on the nineteenth century. She is
currently writing A Cultural History of Decadence for Polity Press
(2004), co-writing a book on cancer and psychoanalysis with Law-
rence Goldie (Routledge, 2004), and has written (in the journal
Soundings, 18, 2001) on anorexia and passive resistance in Hermann
Melville’s 1853 tale, Bartleby. Her future projects include a book on
skin, based on the work of Didier Anzieu’s Le Moi-Peau.
Hélène Dubinsky is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psycho-
ix