This is a clinical discussion of work with a patient with body image and eating difficulties. Thought is given to the use made of the psychotherapeutic setting by the patient, in which limitation of the work and a pleasant elusiveness hides a more active engagement, as well as a secret involvement with more problematic and destructive processes. This constitutes an actualization of the patient's internal object world. Use is made of particular ideas to make sense of this presentation, in particular those from theories about eating disorders.