Seventy-two psychoanalysts collected information on 84 obese patients and on a control sample of 63 of their patients of normal weight. Despite the fact that obesity was the chief complaint of only 6% of the obese patients, weight losses after 42 months of psychoanalytic treatment compared favorably with those after traditional medical efforts: 47% of the obese psychoanalytic patients lost more than 9 kilograms and 19% lost more than 18 kilograms. There was also a striking decrease in the percentage of obese patients suffering from body image disparagement—from 44% to 12%, an unexpectedly good result for this chronic and intractable disorder.