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Professor Battegay's English Edition of Hunger Diseases is an expanded version of his German publication Hunger Krankheiten. There have also been two subsequent editions of the original text with added material that is included in the present publication.
The English version of Hunger Diseases has an introduction by Otto Kernberg, M.D., as well as a preface by the author to the English and the two preceding German editions.
In the introductory general considerations we are told that “Never again is it easy for humans to get food in the mother's womb.” This figure of speech harks back to Rank's construct of the birth trauma. The author also interprets the neonate's initial cry as containing a narcissistic injury as well as an imperative demand for restitution of the intrauterine milieu. This “paradise lost” concept has poetic components without necessarily presenting the way things are. Such a comment tends to call attention to a symbolic frame of reference akin to poetic language whereby a symbol expresses a feeling rather than a fact.
Professor Battegay conceives the metaphor of “hunger” as a hub in the manifestation of “abnormal narcissism.” It enables him to project the symbol, “hunger” across the lines of demarcation in a variety of particular categories such as biology, psychology, culture, religion, politics and other territorial entities.
The symbol of “Hunger Phenomenon” creates an imaginative platform for human dilemmas. Symptomatically there are sundry components that are projected in a variety of symptoms. For instance there may be an experiential phenomenon of inner emptiness. Another phenomenon is the indication of an unstable self-esteem. The so-called “Hunger Diseases” are also projected to cultural manifestations within the realm of Western as well as Eastern cultures. In general the emphasis is focused on excessive stimuli, that is, a compulsive pursuit of key experiences that tend to be hollow daydreams. Another phenomenon points to insatiable hunger i