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Anorexic space
Author(s) -
Shipton Geraldine
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1298(199911/12)9:6<435::aid-casp541>3.0.co;2-s
Subject(s) - object (grammar) , fantasy , psychology , psychoanalytic theory , psychoanalysis , space (punctuation) , object relations theory , unconscious mind , perspective (graphical) , psychic , presentation (obstetrics) , epistemology , social psychology , psychotherapist , linguistics , philosophy , medicine , art , alternative medicine , literature , computer science , radiology , pathology , artificial intelligence
This paper considers the female anorexic's use of space by reviewing her spatial practice as demonstrated in her clinical presentation upon starting therapy. Two categories of concept about space underpin the paper: the notion that space is produced as conceived in a Marxist perspective by Lefebvre, and psychoanalytic concepts of mental space derived from the work of Bick (1968), Meltzer (1975) and Rey (1994). Beginning psychotherapy with an anorexic patient shows how particular spatial phantasies (phantasy is here construed as an unconscious configuration of the mind which affects how we think, feel and act (see Isaacs, 1943) as opposed to a conscious fantasy such as a daydream) and practises structure the intersubjective relationship between therapist and patient and between patient and aspects of her own experience. In this paper anorexia is considered as a defence against consuming desire for the object (the word ‘object’ is used to represent the earliest relationship the infant has to someone else whom he or she has yet to recognize as a whole autonomous person in their own right. Object is thus used as a category word and not in a denigratory sense) (Sohn, 1985). Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.