SPECIAL ARTICLE   

Minerva Psichiatrica 2020 June;61(2):53-8

DOI: 10.23736/S0391-1772.19.02045-4

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Food and eating disorders between body, psychic, myth and fairy tale

Ivan DE SANTIS ¹, Gianfranco TOMEI ² ✉

¹ Department of Prevention at ASL Frosinone, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy; ² Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

Food is a fundamental element of human life. Eating disorders, according to psychoanalysis, often come from an unfitting relationship with parental figures, and the approach to the classical myth can help us to focus on the problem effectively. From the representation of the many-breasted goddess Artemis, to history full of symbols that Collodi represented with his Pinocchio, the myth reminds us in many ways of the relationship between man and food. In modern times the increase of the rhythms of life and the leaving of the umbilical reference to tradition, have perhaps been the cause of many modern pathologies, such as bulimia and nervous anorexia, which afflict a number of male and female adolescents but also many adults, because of the body deformity this pathology entails.

KEY WORDS: Food; Psychoanalysis; Narration; Anorexia; Bulimia; Feeding and eating disorders