The Fat Lady Sings

This book examines the so-called War on Obesity as an example of a cultural complex, how that complex shapes the way fat is treated in psychotherapy, including the classical Jungian approach to fat, as written by Marion Woodman. It looks at the experience of being fat as an ongoing trauma.

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In the analytic encounter, body meets body, yet rarely is body mentioned. Without a body, we become like the nymph Echo, a disembodied voice condemned to echo what she hears. Rooted in analytical psychology, The Fat Lady Sings challenges the notion that the fat patient must change to fit into a thin world. For years we have been bombarded by warnings about the Obesity Epidemic, a concern rivaling that about terrorism. Curiously, the depth psychological literature is mostly silent about this preoccupation, its origins, meaning, and the psychotherapeutic treatment issues involved.Almost everything written about fat and being fat comes from the world of the slender. Fat people are rarely consulted about their lives, how they eat and move and live. They are too often not seen as credible, or as reliable witnesses to their own experience. The Fat Lady Sings is an exploration of fat and our culture, the fat complex that grips our culture, how the war on obesity is fought in the clinical setting, and how being fat is an ongoing traumatic experience. The book grows out of the author's life as a fat woman, her work as a Jungian psychotherapist, and as a patient in analysis.