Primitive Anxieties, Gender Madness, and Perversions of Agency in Eating Disordered Patients: Commentary on Paper by Tom Wooldridge

Abstract

The following is a discussion of Tom Wooldridge’s (this issue) paper on primitive anxieties in anorexia and his metaphor of the “entropic body” as a false self “body-state” (Petrucelli, 2014) that functions to omnipotently deny dependency. The focus here is on how, for the eating disordered patient, primitive anxieties related to dependency and containment intertwine with the challenges of rapprochement, in which separation, agency, and awareness of sex difference emerge in a traumatic field. This response emphasizes the clinical utility of conceptualizing eating disorders as disorders of a gendered, agentic self. Wooldridge’s clinical material is discussed with a focus on (a) the salience of gendered enactments in work with eating disordered patients and (b) the relationship between experiences of “entropy” in the clinical dyad and the mutual disavowal of gender-inflected identifications and desires.

Notes

¹ Throughout this discussion, I maintain the perspective that no trait is essentially masculine or feminine; rather these meanings arise from the complex interplay of cultural and developmental context. At the same time, I do talk about common gender pathways as a way to articulate how masculinity and femininity can become implicated in the development of eating disorders.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Schoen

Sarah Schoen, Ph.D., is Faculty and Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute’s Psychoanalytic Training Program and Eating Disorders, Compulsions and Addictions Program, and Faculty, NYU Postdoctoral Program. She is coeditor of Unknowable, Unspeakable, and Unsprung: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Scandal, Truth, Secrets and Lies (2017). Recent articles include “Afraid to Commit: Proposing Psychoanalysis and the Paradox of the Analyst’s Desire” (Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 2015) and “The Culture of Interrogation: Evaluating Detainees at Guantanamo Bay” (International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 2017). She is in private practice in New York’s Flatiron District.