Response to “Pathological Organizations and Psychic Retreats in Eating Disorders” by Yael Adira Kadish: Use and Usefulness of Psychoanalytic Scripture in the Treatment of the Eating-Disordered Patient: The Psychoanalyst's Retreat?

Proust (1922) in Remembrance of Things Past spoke of the people with whom we fall in love: “We alter them incessantly to suit our desires and fears,” he wrote. “They are only a vast and vague place in which our affections take root. It is the tragedy of other people that they are to us merely showcases for the very perishable collections of our own mind” (p. 326).

Boris (1984), speaking of his work with an eating-disordered patient and her family, noted: “I wish I were some place less lonely” (p. 317).

The eating-disordered patient knows well how to engage at once actively and in full isolated retreat within the bounds of a relationship. Seemingly involved and self-aware, these patients can be maddeningly ensconced in a world of psychic withdrawal, more alone, disconnected, and unreachable than may appear at first glance. Often they remain “only a vast and vague place in which … affections take root” because, for many of these patients, being the counterpoint to another's desire is the endgame of the relational engagement. As a patient of mine says, “I know how to talk to people, to seem like I'm really interested. By the end of the day though, I'm exhausted. I just want my time alone.” How to allow