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The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychodynamics of weight gain, weight loss, and deviant eating patterns, based on the data derived from the Academy Study of 84 obese and 63 normal weight patients in psychoanalytic treatment (Rand and Stunkard 1977a and 1977b). Historically, psychoanalysts have emphasized the notion that obese individuals have encountered a serious disturbance during the oral stage of psychosexual development (Alexander 1934, Schick 1947, Bychowski 1950, Rascovsky, et al. 1950). According to them, emotional deprivations or excesses in this stage of development somehow became associated with nourishment