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One of my first cases was a young anorexic patient. At the time I did not have a specific theory of anorexia. However, it is to this patient that I owe my encounter with a specific theory, which was manifested in a dream in which she (Bianca) distinguished the higher-level characteristics of mammal mating from the lower-level ones of reptile mating. The specific theory developed by this patient was the trigger for my research.
Psychoanalytic theories of anorexia, from Freud's classification of the condition as an aversion (Ablehnung) to sexuality to Wulff's first analyses (Wulff, 1932; see Camassa, 2009), resulted in such an intricate web of controversies that one is justified in claiming that theory is driven mad by the disorder.
This suggested to me that anorexia itself was a specific theory, and moreover one that was antagonistic to the infantile sexual theories investigated by psychoanalysis; and that if the theory of the ideal ego (Idealich) is added to these, this might help us to understand how a specific (ideal) theory comes into being and grows.
Furthermore, I made the discovery that, besides the stories of Hera, Aphrodite and Athena, our mythology includes a clear and distinct narration — namely, the mythologem of Artemis and her nymphs. An epidemic deity like Dionysus, Artemis is invoked during adolescence. From her father she has obtained three «gifts», which will be «vows» for the initiate: dominion over sexuality; dominion over chaos; and dominion over borderlands. In a word, the need is for a special body and absolute endurance. This offers a «superior configuration» with unvarying characteristics as compared with the ever-changing forms of adolescence, such that, I would say, one «sees» a larger number of anorexic adolescents than of adolescents pure and simple.
The history of the anthropological figures of anorexia, too, is odd: miraculous young girls vying with each other in feudal courts over their fasting capacity; saints and witches; or skeletal wom