From a phenomenological point of view, Anorexia nervosa could be elaborated on around severed themes, such as the antagonism between mother and daughter, feminist rebellion (not only because anatomical differences but, on a more essential level, against sexual submission, against deeper inequalities and against the feminine condition); rebellion against being-throw-into-the-world, ascetic structure, existential themes, and so on.
The eidos, in the sense used by Husserl, in anorexia mental, common to its various clinical forms, resides in the patient’s taking her own body hostage. She rises in rebellion against the hybris of the father, the anxiety of the mother and sometimes, even against the therapist’s efforts.
Some cases are mild and transient, but other patients feel existence as violence. Unable to avoid this double violence: the fact of the existence and obstinacy of others who are trying to help her, they take their own bodies hostage in order to delay moving into existence.
Psychoanalysis; body; anorexia nervosa; violence