Binge Eating Disorder

The “hungry self” is a self- and body-state (Petrucelli, 2015) characterized by profound need and accompanying frustrated rage that develops because of childhood maltreatment, which is prominent in patients with binge eating disorder (BED). In these patients, this part of the self is sadistically subjugated to a greater or lesser extent by another part of the self, developed through a powerful identification with an abusive parental figure. Binge eating episodes are a channel through which to express these otherwise subjugated affects which remain more-or-less dissociated from the patient’s conscious mind in her day-to-day life. Central to the treatment of BED is the facilitation of the outward expression, in the transference, of aggression, as this supports the patient’s efforts to break free of the experience of emotional subjugation and can, over time, facilitate her capacity to express these important affects in new relational contexts.