Para além dos sintomas: a trilogia do desamparo no vivido de mulheres com transtornos do comportamento alimentar

Abstract

This paper describes the intrapsychic emotional life of women with eating disorders and how they perceive their treatment. Our research targeted 12 to 45 years old women who happen to be patients from a major university public hospital and a private psychological clinic both located in Fortaleza, a medium sized city in the north-east ofBrazu. A quality research, based on a phenomenological pomt of view was chosen to be oiir theoretical method and we divided our findings in three main categories: the genesis of the eating disorder; how women perceive themselves nowadays as patients with an eating disorder; their therapeutic journey. Our research results show that one's biography and cultural context appear to be determining factors in the development of one's setf-esteem and body image. Those women's fragüe personality structure wiU make them feel unhappy about their weight and body shape and, because of that, they are most likely to develop inappropriate weight control practices. Also, they become easily afiTected by the demands of the consumer culture witth its own unrealistic ideals of female beauty e conclude that the current medical treatment for eating problems used with these subjects make controlling the symptom their mam goal. However, our findings demonstrate that this approach is ineiFective. Only by undertanding the symptom as an expression of the confluence of intrapsychic, mterpersonal and cultural experience can the treatment help these women learn to live in peace in their bodies