Conversations with Anorexics: A Compassionate and Hopeful Journey through the Therapeutic Process

From Publisher's Weekly: This posthumous collection of case material illustrates the treatment modality successfully employed by psychiatrist Bruch with patients suffering from the eating disorder of anorexia. Two of her associates at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston have edited this final work, taped by the author before her death in 1984. Bruch makes the reader privy to the therapeutic transaction between her patients who are in what she describes as "the relentless pursuit of thinness.'' Emphasizing the conversational ambiance of the therapy and discounting heretofore unsuccessful approaches of psychoanalysis and behavior modification, she helped her patients to heal. The dramatic dialogues in the cases presented allow us to hear these desperate young anorexic women individually explore their thwarted development, under the direction of a compassionate physician who guides them towards wellness.