Internal Landscapes and Foreign Bodies

This book represents a shift especially in the area of eating disorders, from valuing possessions to valuing a different aspect in one's quality of life. It explores the problems which arise in forming and sustaining intimate relationships.

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Klein's model of projective and introjective processes and Bion's model of the relationship between container and contained have become increasingly significant in clinical work. In a highly imaginative development of these models of thought, the distinguished clinician Gianna Williams, one of the leading figures in the field, elucidates the psychodynamics of these processes in the context of impairment of dependent relationships and of eating disorders in both men and women. This is a timely and brilliant account of an area of psychopathology that is rapidly growing in significance. The author provides a subtle understanding of some of the obstacles, which stand in the way of patients seeking and receiving therapeutic helpInternal Landscapes and Foreign Bodies explores the problems which arise in forming and sustaining intimate relationships. This book is based on Gianna Williams' work over many years in the Tavistock Clinic, including work in the Eating Disorders Workshop of the Adolescent Department. It examines how dependency is defended against in a variety of ways, which involve refusing to take in good experiences, by keeping some relationships at bay and controlling others. These defences can take the form of eating disorders but also have an important significance in a variety of other pathologies.