Eating Disorders and Myths

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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 October 2013 20:37
Written by Mara Liberman
This is a study about eating disorders and how they inhibit the personal development
of women exactly at the time when she has greatest opportunity to express herself.

Abstract
This is a study about eating disorders and how they inhibit the personal development of
women exactly at the time when she has greatest opportunity to express herself.
The numbing characteristics of these disturbances alienate the sufferers from the underlying
symbolic contents, making it more difficult for them to understand their personal position
within this addictive process.
The author is trying to recover the symbolic meanings not only of food and its disorderly
ingestion but also for body image.
She examines myths and fairy tales which provide essential keys for this type of escapist
behavior. She works with the hypothesis that eating disorders are covering up problems
rooted in a feminine identity disconnected from its matrix. She proposes to find solutions in
constructive self-mothering and the reconnection with the feminine archetype, from which a
new female image arises.

The recent period in occidental history has been a unique and fascinating moment for women.
Entry into the work culture and market has presented opportunities that were previously
unimaginable for female liberation and expression, and if the challenges are multiplying, so
too are the conquests and opportunities for personal growth.

On the other hand, the number of lonely or distressed women is also significant, and the
conflicts faced in constructing a feminine identity are far from solved. Neither adopting
masculine values nor returning to traditional standards of submission seem to work...

Perhaps the alarming incidence of disturbing, and frequently tragic relationships with food is
a sign that the harmonious feminine core is being threatened. Eating disorders have never
been so common, repetitive and debilitating as they are now. Research points to an alarming
increase in the number of people who are over their normal weight (in North America, in
excess 30% of the population). Most people who go on diets put back all the lost weight.
If we think of obesity as a subjective state, where it is enough for a person to feel fat for her
to experience and act as such and to start a frenzy of diets, (even within a very restricted
weight change), we can see that the problem reaches alarming proportions.

Eating disorders are an inappropriate use of eating as an attempt to solve or camouflage

existential or internal problems. These end up not being faced or recognized and become
even more difficult to solve. This happens because, in general, someone who has an eating
disorder becomes completely wrapped up in it. When a feeling of dissatisfaction arises, or a
hint of internal or existential disturbance, a person tries to anesthetize it by eating
inappropriately (bingeing, eating in bouts, swallowing vast quantities of food at great speed,
or eating less but without stopping, indiscriminate eating of food that is not even appreciated
until a state of stupor is reached).

Some people start a ritual of binges, followed by vomiting or excess use of laxatives
(bulimia) or even the dramatic and sometimes fatal alternations between compulsive eating
and "purification" or prolonged fasting (anorexia nervosa).

Some may also decide that to change their lives means losing weight, and become
compulsively preoccupied with diets, scales, measures, calorie counting, alternating between
the omnipotence of the "everything will change when I lose weight", with bouts of guilt when
they are unable to achieve their objectives.

In fact, it is open to question whether a person with an eating disorder is addicted to food or
to the endless circle of loss and recovery of weight.

The fact is that this process generates considerable suffering and is a great drain on physic
and physical energy and internal and external resources (including significant financial
expense). Severely limiting, eating disorders create varying degrees of damage to the
personal development of sufferers in all areas. "Severe compulsion restricts one's life so
much that one does not really have a life — perhaps some form of existence that can be
performed in some areas, but not life". (1)

The search and denial of symbolic eating

Food has an intense ability to evoke memories of situations and moments, and can be a way
to locate significant passages in one's personal history.

It also has an extremely rich range of symbolic connections — eating, even "normally", is
always associated with emotional and personal experiences and its cultural meaning goes far
beyond satisfying biological needs: it rarely relates just to nutritional value and availability.

Food has a religious content, helps distinguish social and cultural characteristics, and conveys
status and prestige. When a family throws a party, they are being hospitable, taking a
provider's pride in a richly laid table, and it is easy to see how they express their values.
Reliving family origins or group affiliations, a person can through food habits perform rituals
that hint at complex values and personal identification.(2) Food expresses creativity,
tenderness, status, power...

When a compulsion appears, all this rich content is lost. The person might still want to show
and express his or her own identity while overeating or denying food, but these meanings are
soon lost in repetitive patterns. Observing the rituals, we can trace hints of what went wrong
and of how to approach the hidden person within.
It is possible that eating disorders signal underlying symbols or something about the time
they appeared. The problem is that all remains buried by the anesthetizing characteristic of
the disorder and stays unconscious together with the memories that could be evoked and the
desires which have been replaced by the will to eat.

We will examine some of the more significant symbols and feelings, and although they can
exist in both men and women, throughout this article we will be stressing the feminine side.
While the same complex can be related to obesity, bulimia or anorexia, more emphasis will
be given to obesity.

Many disturbances related to food can be traced to a non-nurturing mother image, a

problematic dynamic in the first experiences of being fed and loved.

Eating to deny a deprivation of affection and true relationships from early infancy or in a
given life moment is a common habit. What is at stake here is seeking in food the "good
mother" image and the possibility of being nurtured by unconditional love.

In this case, overeating can be an attempt to compensate for an immense amount of

unfulfilled needs, like an insatiable desire for impossible love; constant feelings of emptiness,
lack of self esteem and feelings of insecurity, feelings that nothing will go right. Apathy,
fatalism, embarrassment, and a tendency to abandon projects normally overlap with
overeating, evidencing the lack of drive.

This mechanism is common to people rejected by mothers, who neglected their feeding or
who faked genuine and positive feelings, replacing them with over- protection, offering more
and more food to compensate for, or substitute non-existent legitimate affection.

In general, overeaters are people who confuse their true needs with insatiable desire, eternal
hunger; who do not know how to look for love in relationships that would bring real and
viable benefits. Actually they may even frighten others away with their greed and voracity.

But all is not lack of mothering. Some of the other underlying feelings and impulses that
overeating hides can be:

- Intolerable negative emotions such as anger, hate (not dealt with, difficult to express ) often
aimed at parents but spreading indeterminately over a hostile world. If faced, these emotions
would create guilt. Impulses such as cannibalism; desire for power and control; intolerance of
frustration; generally coexist in the equation. When all these feelings are repressed, they can
turn against the body and appear only as anger against the self, feelings of guilt for having
eaten too much, feeling like garbage, etc. Obliterating these feelings prevents them from
coming to the surface, for example, difficult relations with the mother and the need to
separate from her.
- Depression — in a dull life, without joy, with tedious and empty activities, food provides a
way to obtain easy and immediate pleasure. It is a means of guaranteeing that one's needs will
be filled and that life is worth living.
- As a defense mechanism, eating excessively is more benign than profound depression and
suicidal tendencies. Since food is easy to obtain, the sufferer seeks to compensate for losses,
deceptions and frustrations in things that involve more work, in whose potential for success
the person no longer believes. Easier to eat than face a new job or relationship, for instance...
and than hide behind the appearance to justify it. (I do not get promoted, do not date, do not
dance or swim cause I am fat)
- Non-specific tension, such as anxiety, stress from having to face frustrating situations or
difficult or exhausting periods in life, can appear solely as hunger. Other desires also express
themselves as the desire to eat, such as the impulse for sexual gratification which eating can
substitute, mask or even deny, since eating disorders can adversely affect a woman's sexuality
as well as affecting her appearance (in her own evaluation at least).
- Even at the physical level a person can interpret as hunger indiscriminate signals, such as
feelings of thirst, tiredness, subjective or objective feelings of weakness, lack of interest,
sleepiness, irritability, tedium, uneasiness.
- Other desires that can be camouflaged but coexist with an eating disorder can express
ambivalent wishes regarding pregnancy, or even to be a man, when obesity is experienced as
an expression of strength, power or authority. An obese body emphasizes some feminine
forms, such as breasts, but makes others infantile or ambiguous, such as when there is no
waist, a large stomach, voluminous shoulders and arms, etc. This desire to be a man may
even hide a homosexual tendency; it also speaks of an impossibility to be accepted within a
culture in the most direct and easiest way, without conflicts of identity and role.
It can also reflect the need to be in control and have power.
- Obesity can imply a desire to conquer a place in the world, which in this case is done by the
concrete space occupied.
It can be a sign of fear of really growing up; doubts whether this growth is possible, with the
legitimate appropriation of a meaning in life and in the world. These doubts are catalyzed or
are caused by a range of insecurities and anxieties. One of these could be linked with the
difficulty a daughter in surpassing her mother and the fear that this may cause the mother to
be jealous or resentful .(3)
- A woman can also be afraid of not being loved and accepted if she manages to become
independent and successful — or if she is unable to be successful.
- Eating disorders and compulsions, due to their ritualistic characteristics, can caricature and
imitate real transformation rituals. There is a high incidence of these disorders appearing, or
returning during crisis or crucial moments in life, such as adolescence, leaving home,
entering university or graduating, marriage, separation, having children, mid-life crisis,
menopause, etc. In these cases the warped eating habits just camouflage the real crisis that
underlies it.
- The fear of change or taking a step forward can be so great or the ego can be so fragile that
it is unable to accept the change. Eating rituals become a vicious circle, constantly indicating
that the time has come to make the journey to another cycle but preventing this from
happening.
- Uneasiness about a desire to grow up, change and develop, may only set off new and
repeated visits to the fridge, each time more drastic, or lead women to the scales, diets and
weight loss clinics. This may actually result in weight loss, which in general is accompanied
by a relapse of feelings of depression, uselessness, dissatisfaction, and fear of emptiness.
When the anesthetic from the food and compulsion wears off, all this is gradually revealed.
- Diet sabotage is experienced by the majority of obese people who oscillate between losing
and gaining weight, making weight loss a slow and painful process. Dieters often give up
halfway through.
Once the ideal weight has been reached, issues can appear that had heretofore been avoided:
non-existent or bad relationships, intensely dependent attachments which are still impossible
to break off, original and personal solutions that have still not been reached. Questions of
identity become even more acute: "If I am no longer the "fat-so" then who am I?".

After a long period of isolation, the person may not know how to restart her social life. She
becomes frustrated when the world does not glamorously open up to this new thin woman.
Benefits do not always appear suddenly, and it can be difficult to find genuine pleasures to
substitute the advantages of easy access to chocolate, sweets and ice cream.

Unfortunately, the replies to these, and numerous other questions, require a person to face
issues that create conflicts and generate a great deal of anxiety, while the excuse provided by
obesity no longer exists ("I don't go out, I can't get a better job, I don't go to the beach, I don't
go dancing, I don't date, etc., because I am fat").

The easiest solution may be to regain the weight and then try to resolve everything by going
on another diet. Only very rarely does a woman perceive that what she is searching for can
only be found after a long internal journey, which overcomes the anxieties and great
emptiness in order to arrive at regions inhabited by the richness of the interior self, buried
behind walls and defenses.

The greatest difficulty, contrary to common opinion, is not to lose weight, but to live.

Symbolic and archetypal obesity

The power that an eating disorder has to isolate the sufferer, making the person retreat even
more to solitude and silence, is extremely harmful. A woman does not share valid
experiences with a judging world that is hostile and discriminating towards the fat and very
thin.

The obese person would benefit greatly if she could see the cultural and generational
dimension of her problem, or have some sort of group experience where she would feel less
like a monster and villain of her own history. Feeling guilty does not mean taking
responsibility for one's choices.
Thus it is also possible that an understanding of the mythical and archetypal aspects which
underlie this type of disturbance can provide a great sense of relief, showing not only a path
to take, but also a door to escape from conflict.

Particular stories and myths, when used in group therapy and individual analysis, offer a
chance to find powerful associative answers, and mobilize internal resources that can cure.

It is worth stressing that these stories and myths can be interpreted in various ways; we are
only looking at one interpretation, relating to obesity. The themes of walls, trees, glass, boxes
and armors found in stories and myths appear in the dreams of obese patients, indicating
symbolism of protective layers of fat.

None of the storied discussed refer to infantile obesity, which is the expression of myths of
the mother or the family and not the child herself. They illustrate eating disorders occurring
from adolescence onwards.

Sleeping Beauty — Addiction To Perfection

In this fairy tale we hear of a kingdom and a queen and king that anxiously awaited a little
girl. Her birth was celebrated with a grand party and blessed by three fairy godmothers:
offering beauty, kindness, a beautiful voice and happiness. During the party, however, the
wicked godmother, who had not been invited, appears, and in the mist of a tremendous storm,
lightening and thunder (establishing the kingdom of chaos in this celebrated order...) decrees
that the princess will die when she is fifteen years old. One of the three good fairies, however,
eases the curse, which is changed to "she will fall into a deep sleep".

Here we can find some important signs: the princess is born is the midst of high expectations;
she would become all that was good and beautiful in the world. But the Shadow side,
different, wild or "bad" (bad witch) cannot participate in the party, nor in her life.
Condemned to being perfect, the princess runs a serious risk of not being able to develop
normally after going through the turmoils and conflicts of adolescence (15 years old).

Even worse, the little girl is banished from the castle. Under the pretext of protecting her
from the bad witch (her own Shadow side) she is sent to the forest to be brought up by good
fairies. Here is clear evidence of parental rejection. Sleeping Beauty grows up alone amongst
plants, animals and fairies — no human contact, because in the search for perfection, it is
humanity itself that is denied her.

The world of the imagination and dreams is highly privileged; she makes no contact with
reality, and is kept in ignorance about who she is and her inheritance and role; without
knowing anything about spinning wheels or spindles, or princes.

It is exactly because of this artificial setting that the predictions become true. A party is being
prepared for the day after her birthday, when she will return to the castle and take on her
home, her name and inheritance; that is, she will only be accepted when the danger of her
Shadow side appearing no longer exists.

Curious, she goes to the castle before the party. Nobody realizes she is there; she finds the
spinning wheel, pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep, together with all of the castle's
inhabitants.
A dense forest of thorns grows around the castle, completely hiding it and the people sleeping
behind the walls.

These thick walls, made even more impenetrable by a forbidding layer of thorns, can
illustrate obesity as a defensive option for a girl who, like Sleeping Beauty, has to profoundly
contain her internal self. The demand for perfection prevented her from facing her more
disturbed sides, which can no longer be kept under control. There is a split: the real self
sleeps, inaccessible, whilst the "bad witch", the unconscious Shadow, inhabits the body
(forest of thorns, layers of fat). This embodiment of the Shadow results in the body
functioning defensively; expressing the aggressiveness that the person only feels in a diffuse
way or doesn't even dare show the world. The body badly treated, badly neglected, carries the
anger, which becomes public; it seems that the aim is to shock.

A woman that lives this myth will have difficulty experiencing reality, sexuality and her
human nature. She might eat compulsively to try to replace everything that was denied her
and to compensate for her loneliness; but she is totally cut off from her true identity.

In the story, it is a prince who arrives to wake her up, which can represent creative aspects of
the animus that manages to overcome thorns and walls to show (kiss) her that she can be
loved for who she is. The kiss, state some Nordic legends, through the exchange of air
between people, wakes up the soul.

The role of the "awakener" can also be seen as the therapist or a person who is able to see
through the woman's enormous defenses and reach her real nature. Or as a part of herself, a
healthy animus, that breaks away from the passive aggressive frame and takes her out of the
walls by some expression of the sleeping core beauty: a creative process, for instance. If this
does not happen, a large part of her potential will remain sleeping as of age 15, preventing the
transition to what would make her a woman.

Snow White — Seduction Without A Heart

In this story we meet a negative stepmother (a way fairy tales sometimes treat an evil mother
might be to call her stepmother), pretty, still young, full of potential, possibly not realized.
She is not interested in being a real mother, and was probably not successful in her own
development because of a rather Narcissistic structure ("mirror, mirror on the wall") and is
resentful.

All of her dissatisfaction turns into a competition with her daughter, whose needs are ignored
and who is not even recognized as an independent person, appearing to be part of the castle.
But when the daughter grows up, and her beauty (potential) appears, her mother/stepmother
is profoundly jealous of the possibilities and opportunities that this girl will have, feeling she
has missed her chances in life.

There is a clear perception that the daughter has overtaken the mother ("Snow White is the
fairest of them all"), and the hate and frustration felt by the mother drives her to try to kill the
daughter (symbolically to suffocate her and prevent her from growing up).

The father in the story appears benign, but is so absent that he is unable to interfere in this
destructive relationship to defend the daughter.

Snow White is sent to the forest, where a hunter has to kill her and return with her heart to the
mother. This signifies that she has totally alienated herself from her emotions, because it is
too much for her ego, which is still fragile, to confront her mother's rejection and hate. The
only feelings left for this girl are fear and the will to live. All of her "self" shrinks back,
repressed and concealed and she ends up using seduction to survive the night in the forest
where she was abandoned (lost amongst the predators of her own psyche, cut off from the
connection with her instincts and her true femininity — which the confused mother does not
know how to contain and which still threatens).

The dwarves can be interpreted as messengers of the good mother who the girl desires or as
expressions of the beginning of the animus, which is still precarious. Whatever the
interpretation, they provide Snow White with a period of peace, but she only seems to be
concerned about being gentle and attentive; probably afraid of being rejected again. When
girls have their basic confidence seriously undermined, they do try to please and seduce
everyone, unconsciously afraid for their own survival in a world that has only been hostile.

Snow White, in her false sense of security, forgets that she still runs a risk. Her alienated
instincts are not awake when an old woman arrives in the forest (the witch), offering her
beautiful, but poisonous apples. She eats one (which gets stuck in her throat) and falls down,
apparently dead.

The old witch can represent the concrete negative mother, but her power is sustained by the
connection with all of the strength of the negative feminine side that has been internalized by
the girl. The search for immediate pleasure and the compulsion that drives her to swallow the
"poisoned" food can indicate, that by choosing obesity or anorexia as a defense, she has
become a tragic victim of the power that she is trying to fight.

The theme of death-faint-sleep repeats the story of Sleeping Beauty, implying that her
internal Self, without access to her emotions, instincts or identity, becomes absent from the
process, "dying" not to be reborn, but to be locked up in a glass case. Cases, boxes and glass
and transparent plastic wrapping often appear in the dreams of obese and anorexic women.
Glass is a substance which, like fat, is highly isolating, embracing the soul in an efficiently
protective manner, but cruelly shutting it off. It does not conduct heat, and therefore keeps the
center of the being cut off from the passion for life.(4)

Since glass is transparent, it implies that the seductive side and the compulsion to please
people continue to function in an attempt to avoid being abandoned.

When, and if the animus, or a significant man reaches her, the girl vomits up the apple and
can breath again, This can symbolize the rejection of the compulsion to obesity and for the
anorexic, the opening of a channel for the legitimate swallowing of food. It also appears to be
what the bulimic tries to do several times a day: vomit up the food that holds her prisoner
together with the paralyzing poison of the introjected negative mother.

The story of Snow White ends happily, demonstrating that enclosure in a box was a phase of
death before rebirth and that the passage from girl to woman became concrete. For the Snow
Whites in real life, the prognosis can also be positive, but they do not always manage to make
the transition and expel the poison, remaining trapped in the beautiful box or returning to it.

A sensitive therapist can teach women to symbolically vomit up what is holding them
prisoners. The fascination for the box dissolves, and is replaced with the desire to wake up
the real Eros brought out by the instinct for life.

Daphne — Denial Of Life

No other myth demonstrates so clearly an example where the denial of life is so strong that
the instinct for life withdraws and the woman is lost forever.

Daphne is a river nymph, beautiful and happy, who spends her time singing and dancing in
the forests. One day Apollo, the god of beauty and the sun, sees her and falls in love.

Apollo approaches calmly, trying to talk to her. Daphne refuses to turn around and look at
him and continues walking. Apollo says he is a friend and is not going to harm her, insisting
that she at least look and listen to him, for her to decide if she wants to accept this love.
Daphne, without looking round, begins to run. Apollo becomes impatient and pursues her, no
longer in a friendly manner. Exhausted, Daphne notices she is close to her father's river,
Peneu, and asks him to remove the beauty and charm that attracts Apollo. The god listens to
her, changing her into a tree; in some versions into a laurel tree, in others, into a shrub that
produces a beautiful flower.(5)

It appears that Daphne refuses, on all levels, the passage to womanhood. She starts by giving
up the right to choose. Choice implies growing because it contains both the choice and the
loss of that which was not chosen. By not turning round, she doesn't permit herself to face the
other, to realize what she wants and her real reasons for saying yes or no. In fact, she does not
dare say "no", she only escapes compulsively.

She also denies her sexuality ("take this charm and beauty away from me"). At the same time,
by not noticing and facing Apollo, she does not allow the solar light, logos, and
discrimination, offered by this god, to penetrate her consciousness; once again indicating her
fear of growing up, even mentally.

The indication that this woman chooses obesity is in the characteristics of some plants; it puts
down roots that feed it continually, day and night, without stopping, that is, without limits.
Trunks also grow laterally, getting thicker and maturing, becoming increasingly more
inflexible and rigid while remaining passive.

The tree is fixed, it no longer moves. If it fights for space it only increases in size. It is an
agreeable presence, provides fruit, flowers and shadow, and is loved in a non-threatening
way. Although the tree is a symbol of life, it is definitely not human.

The Fathers' Daughters

So far we have only looked at stories that describe a basic injury to the connection with the
feminine caused by problems in the relationship between mother and daughter. In Sleeping
Beauty there is a father, but father and mother work so much in unison that they produce a
single energy which is driven towards the desire for perfection.

Daphne asks for her father's help to avoid growing up and he obliges readily. There are
Daphnes in real life, large and sweet, who also suffer from difficult relations with their
mothers, but there are some women that have a problem with choices who belong to another
group who may have eating disorders: "fathers' daughters".

What we mean by fathers' daughters are those women whose main affectionate relationship
was established with their fathers, who are in general, like Puer, charming but unaware, or
like Zeus, masculine and powerful. These women are "daddy's darlings" and the fathers are
able to project their animas onto them, and with it, their expectations. Whether they are
present or not, their daughters adore or fear them.
These women tend to alienate their mothers, reject them (justifiably if they are inefficient,
submissive or critical and negative), and they identify deeply with masculine ideas and ways,
with patriarchy. Whilst the daughter feels loved by the father, her energies can remain
trapped in the Oedipus conflict.

As Marion Woodman says: "the horror ( of the girl being her father's anima or goddess, in
detriment to her humanity) is that her own creative process is hindered : to generate
something that her father desires her to, or even being anything that her father wants her to
be, (this being or not natural to her) is to please daddy, and the double horror is that to please
daddy is to walk in the direction of incest".(6)

Thus, instinct is separated from love; love is separated from sexuality, and sexuality is
transformed into power. There is a myth that illustrates this very well:

Myrrh — Avoidance And Repetition Of Oedipus

Myrrh is the daughter of Teias, king of Syria. Her mother begins to say that her daughter is
more beautiful than Aphrodite, offending the goddess, which awakens in the princess an
uncontrollable incestuous passion for her father. (7)

With the help of a chambermaid, Myrrh disguises herself and manages to enter her father's
residence and becomes his lover for twelve consecutive nights. On the last night she remains
until the morning, suggesting an unconscious desire to be discovered and to end this situation
which is causing so much anxiety for her (incest taboo). The king realizes what is happening.
He is shocked, and chases his daughter in attempt to kill her. She escapes to the forest, where
other gods transform her into a tree, the myrrh, famous for its perfume.

Myrrh is pregnant by her father, and the child continues to grow within the tree trunk. Some
time later, in some versions,Teias or Dyonisio removes the child, by opening the tree with a
knife; in other versions, a wild boar tears down the tree to free the child. This child is Adonis,
loved by Aphrodite and Persephone, who plays an important role in fertility, death and rebirth
rituals. The symbol of the tree repeats the story of Daphne, but the denial of the feminine is
even more evident with Myrrh, who is trapped in a desperate conflict between incest and
death. Again, using the tree as a symbol of obesity, we can see how it functions as a
protection against Oedipus, denying any feminine characteristic; it also effectively isolates
any other amorous relations, which in this context, could be seen as being unfaithful to the
father. In this case, anorexia would have the same defensive characteristics. But Myrrh
remains totally passive in relation to her creativity. She has the potential to create Adonis,
one of the most beautiful creatures in Greek mythology, but does not participate in feeding
and educating him, nor even in his birth.

In fact, the passivity of the tree in being cut open in order to have her child removed,
illustrates what happens in the majority of births today, where, in the name of technological
obstetrics, the woman no longer participates in the birth of her own child, but opts to have
birth by Cesarean section or an anesthetized "natural" birth.

Violated, psychologically and physically, by the incest, separated from her son (symbolically
or actually), without maternal power to bring up the child she created, how can the Myrrh
woman of today bring to light her immense internal wealth? It appears that she does not have
sufficient femininity to be responsible for her own body, nor sufficient masculinity or
creative animus to take responsibility for her own talents options and creativity.
One of the roles of the therapist when faced with a syndrome like this, can be to be the
"midwife" who reaches Adonis (the essence of creativity), trapped in the tree-armor, looking
after her, so that the woman can assume this nucleus, creating it and feeding it, until it
becomes the means by which she can leave the process that is trapping her.

Athena And Medusa — The Perversion Of The Impulse To

Grow And Change
Athena is perhaps the most typical father's daughter, being born fully armored from the head
of Zeus, who had swallowed her mother, Metis. Athena is a lucid and strategic warrior. She is
seen as the goddess of intelligence, reason, patriarchal stability, creative spirit, the arts and
philosophy. She also protects artists and weavers.

Bolen describes an Athenian type woman as someone who values domination of the will and
intellect over instinct and nature. She also sees her as "defender of patriarchal rights and
values, who emphasizes tradition and the right of masculine power" (8)

It is worth remembering, that in the story of Orestes, who, having killed his mother
Clytemnestra, is then attacked by Erinias, the vote that finally absolves him is Athena's, who
says: "I did not have a mother who gave birth to me. I am in favor of men; with all of my
strength I am in favor of my father".

The woman who lives this archetype appears perfectly equipped to grow up and be successful
in a man's world, free of the great weight of passions and feelings (she is encouraged to go
against these), without any divisions of loyalty. She can even be very creative and a large part
of her energy is able to flow.

But some "Athenas" are not totally free and happy.

There was a very beautify girl, Medusa, who was bold enough to compare herself to Athena.
Athena is enraged and transforms her long hair into a mass of snakes, and her face, with its
bulging eyes, is turned into something so horrendous and penetrative, that anyone who looks
at her turns to stone. Thus, Medusa becomes one of the Gorgons, the ancient monsters with
gold wings and bronze claws and fangs. Medusa lives in the archetypal imagination, in the
darkest underground, but can also suddenly appear and fly, paralyzing anyone who looks at
her, an old symbol for unexpected fear.

It is Perseus who manages to kill Medusa, using a mirror-shield provided by Athena. Later
Perseus gives Medusa's head to Athena, who uses it on her own shield to ward off and
paralyze her enemies. One version says that Athena learns to play the flute to imitate the
sound Medusa made when she was dying.

It is obvious that one does not exist without the other, and it seems valid to assume that
Medusa can be Athena's deepest and distorted Shadow's aspects. It would be very simplistic
to interpret Medusa only as an Athenian woman, who, in a difficult time of transition,
develops an eating disorder. Marion Woodman cites Medusa as a symbol of greed and desires
that can never by fulfilled, representing all of the addictions; alcoholism, clean mania,
perfectionism, etc., and, obviously, dysfunctional relations and compulsions with food. The
snake hair, eternally trying to reach something, the enormous, greedy mouth, with sharp
fangs; everything speaks of an immense absence, and of a permanently primitive and
insatiable desire.(9)
Another interpretation refers to the meanings of the Gorgons. These were primordial deities
belonging to the pre-Olympic generation, who later evolved into frightening monsters. There
were three monsters: Esteno, Euriale and Medusa. They came to represent the enemies to be
fought, the monstrous deformities of the psyche that arise from a perversion of three
legitimate impulses: sociability, sexuality and spirituality.

Euriale represents sexual perversion, Esteno, social, and Medusa, the perversion of the
spiritual and evolutionary impulse. We can thus infer that the polarity of the opposites
represented in the Athena-Medusa conflict means that the Athena woman, lost in a unilateral
existence as a result of exercising only some aspects of her personality, is preventing the
evolution of her individuation process. If she manages to find her feminine side and her
repressed affectionate needs, and she overcomes the fear that this can cause, the process will
flow again. But, if this does not happen, she will have to face the terrorizing appearance of
Medusa, her shadow side, perhaps in the form of an addiction, obesity or an illness. It is as if
her shield was suddenly turned to face her, and she recognizes herself in the face that is so
different from hers.

She could even become paralyzed in this moment of transition and her natural desire for
evolution becomes reduced to a "frivolous and repetitive stagnation".

It is the very person with the clear, creative and incisive intelligence that can when too rigid
have her life anesthetized, cut off from feelings and emotions which are the creators of new
forms of real power. Thus this warrior person, so admired, can become a prisoner to a
repetitive suffering, silent and solitary, that drains and humiliates.

Conclusions
It appears that the key to curing this "epidemic" of "eating disorders" that torment women
today lies in the development of a new feminine identity. This identity must recover or
restore the connections with the natural matrix, the body matrix and the matrix of the
enlarged feminine, which also includes, and transcends, the mother, pointing to the possibility
of constructive self mothering.

In clinical practice it is frequent for us to come into contact with women who adopt all of the
masculine values, from changes in the way they speak, gesticulate and dress, to over-
prioritizing rational, logical and objective behavior to the detriment of intuition and
subjectivity, the success measure relying on acting rather than living and paying attention to
themselves.

For these women, feminine is all that must be rejected and repressed; they show a great
dislike for traditional roles and submissive attitudes. The problem is that they are unable to
separate the meaning of feminine from these stereotypes, and they do not feel connected to
any force that does not come from the animus or from a caricature of masculine behavior.

There are also women who feel lost between these two poles; on the one hand, the feminine
seen as seducer, futile, superficial, only interested in making herself beautiful and on the
other, the masculine pole, which they also reject as a model of authoritarianism.

In general, these women are distant from their bodies and they often have eating disorders
and diffuse sensations of anxiety.
One of the roles of the therapist, in these cases, is to help recover the notion of a feminine
archetype, give emphasis to being and the search for this feminine within the universe of each
analysand.

Dreams about meeting the "internal goddess" permeate this process and the creation of a new
identity, which does not exclude the soul and lives together with the creative aspects of the
animus.

Another therapeutic function is to identify and discern the myth lived by the anesthetized ego,
which helps awaken it. In this search for the true self, much compulsive behavior will be
dissolved, as if it has exhausted its defensive purpose and the birth of a woman is made
legitimate.

When the real identity begins to emerge, all of the questions related to the person's
confidence begin to appear: confidence in herself and confidence in the world. These have to
be faced for the woman to be able to leave the comfortable walls, forests of brambles, glass
cases, tree trunks or shields and armor.

The universe presented by the negative mother is very hostile and rejecting and the tendency
to withdraw and search for a refuge is great, which explains the great incidence of regression,
periods of not losing weight and periods of gaining weight by obese patients. There can also
be evasion of the analytical process.

By establishing some degree of confidence, including on a therapeutic relationship, priorities

can be established and what the person really wants to express in her life can be identified.

The therapist must respect the time demanded by this process, (which is often long) all of the
regressions, and try not to impose a personal preference for quicker results, thus escaping
from the trap of visible success that this type of work presents.

It is necessary not to lose from view that until the damaged connections with the feminine
have been cured and rebuilt with new foundations, we all can be, on a level more or less
known to us, easy prey to compulsive sufferings, until we can reconnect with our real
identity.

Bibliographical References
1- Woodman, M. - Addiction to Perfection .Toronto, Inner City Books, 1982

2- Bruch, H —Eating Disorders. New York, Basic Books, 1973.

3- Chernin, K — The Hungry Self. U.S.A., Times Books, 1985.

4- Woodman, M — Op. Cit. No 1

5- Brandão , J. S. — Mitologia Grega, Petrópolis, Vozes, 1987, Vol. 2

6- Woodman, M — Op. Cit. No 1

7- Brandão , J. S. — Mitologia Grega, Petrópolis, Vozes, 2nd. Edition, 1986, Vol. 1

8- Bolen, J.S. — Deusas e a Mulher. São Paulo, Paulinas, 1990.

 9- Woodman, M — Op. Cit. No 1

10- Brandão, J. S. — Op. Cit. No 7

Published in Junguiana no 12, São Paulo, 1994.

Mara Liberman, Junguiana no 12, São Paulo, 1994.

Jungian Analyst

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