Nov 1, 2018
Compulsive eating is a complicated psychological and biological
problem. Food addiction can be a way of defending against unmet
needs by displacing emotional hunger onto food. We discuss how
infant experiences with eating and soothing can shape one’s
relationship to food in adulthood. Two fairy tales tell of parents
with insatiably devouring babies and illustrate the consequences of
failure to develop affect regulation and how that can lead to
various vulnerabilities to addiction.
The dream:
My skin (not sure what body part) had green mold on it, like the
intense green mold that grows on an orange. When I try to peel it
off, I discover it is about a centimeter thick and that it comes
away in spongy chunks leaving a very uneven skin surface—once
again, like the contrast between peel, pith, and segments of an
orange. I feel alarmed. I stop peeling worrying the whole structure
will collapse.