THE CRUMBS OF FRAGILE EXISTENCE: THE PSYCHIC PHENOMENON OF ANOREXIA IN THE NON-NEUROTIC SUBJECTIFICATION SCENARIOS LOGIC

Abstract

Abstract. Anorexia is not an independent phenomenon, and a particular dieting symptom is not enough to determine the course of action for psychological help. Therefore, the author raises the question of the existence of different forms of anorexia and the possibilities of psychoanalysis in clinical work with patients who are on the verge of neurosis and psychosis, while having the structural features of a non-neurotic patient. Taking into account the therapeutic goals, the author thinks about the anorexic phenomenon through Green’s concept of negative (as compared to the one of Lacan’s): the concept of the object of nothing, as well as through projective identification, rejection, denial, white psychosis, emptiness, etc., aiming to understand the anorectic subject existence, the fundamental causes of why the symptoms emerge and how long they last. Author relies on the importance of clinical observations and the development of therapeutic strategies, because the non-neurotic anorexia leaves a number of clinical challenges for the practitioners. Namely, the complexity of their emergence, figuring out their transference, the particularities of interpretation, and having to create hypotheses and models that enable accessing specific pathopsychologies. In the article, the author poses that unlike the medical approach, where there’s an emphasis on following the approved protocols and forced methods of increasing body weight through food, which forces anorexics to remain in a closed circle of enjoying the symptom, the psychoanalytic clinical work with an anorexic subject encourages specialists to look for other ways out of the dead end of the specific choice of the subject, which appears as negative if accompanied by others. Food refusal is related to the inner demand for separation, which brings forth the subject’s radical, unshakable anorexic position, aimed at the total control of one’s own body and one’s environment, and this is the highest pleasure of a exhausted body, which, like a fragile wall, can crumble into the crumbs that the anorexic eats – literally and figuratively. Therefore, according to the author, during the sessions, we should contribute to the emergence of questions about the very existence of the subject who challenges their existence in relation to the Other, which does not exist for them, to separate from their demands and refuse the separation, pretending to be an uncastrated subject. In this regard, anorexia is really the opposite of a neurotic symptom and leans towards a non-neurotic one. These are cases that go beyond classical treatment and are located on the edge of psychoanalytic intervention. We need optimism in working with an anorexic subject, despite the fact that such a subject tries by all means to avoid the chosen tactics of their risky existence. The author gives examples from her own clinical practice, proving that this kind of subject requires their psychoanalyst to be a kind of equilibrist, who balances on the edge of theory and empirically intuitive inventions and, together with the patient, explores the amazing peculiarity of the fragile human existence.