Women's Psychology

I began to write about women's psychology because I began to write about eating disorders. As soon as I began to write, I felt that our psychological theories could not adequately explain women's relationship to food, and therefore, could not adequately describe female psychology. Indeed, I began to think that food and eating were to women what sex was to men--the dynamic, organizing principle of our existence, the force that sets us going and must be understood if we are to understand ourselves, free ourselves from suffering, unleash our creativity and the distinctive (female) nature of our spirituality. Over the years, I have found that, for women, an eating disorder is a Royal Road into the unconscious (as Freud called dreams). A source of grave and serious suffering, it can also become the most profound and potent transformative medium offered to women by our culture. This is a paradox, to be sure. I have found it well worth twenty years of work to go on exploring this paradox and discussing it with other women What we as women are, and are yet to become, is not yet known. What an incredible moment for women who love to think about being women.

Related Books

The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness	In My Mother's House: A Daughter's Story (UPDATED!)	The Hungry Self: Women, Eating and Identity	The Flame Bearers: A Novel	Reinventing Eve: Modern Woman in Search of Herself
Sex and Other Sacred Games (with Renate Stendhal)	Crossing the Border: An Erotic Journey	Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song (with Renate Stendhal)	My Life as a Boy	The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother