The psychoanalytic clinic for anorexia and bulimia puts us into immediate contact with the question of the body, as well as with aspects typical of adolescence. These aspects especially include difficulties in early relationships with the mother regarding the management of the drives, and relationships with primary identification. Consequently, we are dealing with ideals, differentiation, autonomy, time and death. Here hypotheses that were drawn up on the basis of metapsychology are discussed, with the objective of contributing to a broader understanding of the construction of the bodily image. This process includes the perception, representation and internal experience of the patients' own bodies. The impasses experienced in the analytic situation also indicate particularities in managing the transference in these cases.
Anorexia; bodily image; metapsychology; managing the transference