Self-Starvation

Fülszöveg

Mara Selvini Palazzoli studied medicine in Milán and treated her first anorexia nervosa patients while still a house physician in the University Medical Clinic of that city. Her interest in their problems persuaded her to specialize and to train as a psychotherapist under Dr. G. Benedetti (Basel). In 1967, she founded the Milán Centre of Family Studies; she alsó teaches at the Psychological Institute of the Catholic University, Milán. In Parts MII of this book the author examines the essential characteristics of anorexia nervosa, a condition first described with accuracy in 1873, and discusses its complex psychological dynamics. From 1951 to 1967, Dr. Selvini Palazzoli relied chiefly on psychoanalytic methods. However, a review of the many cases she had treated convinced her that the enormous effort involved bore no relation to the extremely modest results. She accordingly decided to adopt a new conceptual model and to extend her observations from artificially isolated patients to... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Mara Selvini Palazzoli studied medicine in Milán and treated her first anorexia nervosa patients while still a house physician in the University Medical Clinic of that city. Her interest in their problems persuaded her to specialize and to train as a psychotherapist under Dr. G. Benedetti (Basel). In 1967, she founded the Milán Centre of Family Studies; she alsó teaches at the Psychological Institute of the Catholic University, Milán. In Parts MII of this book the author examines the essential characteristics of anorexia nervosa, a condition first described with accuracy in 1873, and discusses its complex psychological dynamics. From 1951 to 1967, Dr. Selvini Palazzoli relied chiefly on psychoanalytic methods. However, a review of the many cases she had treated convinced her that the enormous effort involved bore no relation to the extremely modest results. She accordingly decided to adopt a new conceptual model and to extend her observations from artificially isolated patients to what she calls the "anorexic family". The new model was based on generál systems theory, the pragmatics of humán communication and cybernetics. They suggested that anorexia nervosa was a social disease reflecting unbearable conflicts within the family or between it and larger social sub-systems. In the chapter entitled "The Cybernetics of Anorexia Nervosa", the author presents and develops an entirely new epistemology of the anorexic syndrome. The validity of the new approach is borne out by the incredibly fast and lasting cures to which it leads. It is based on an ecological view of humán relationships and so has a very wide field of application. Vissza