Perfection

Eating Disorders as an Addiction to Perfection

“The individual may strive after perfection . . . but must suffer from the opposite of his intentions for the sake of his completeness.” Jung (1951) This article is based on Marion Woodman’s Addiction to Perfection and is a continuation of my previous article on the author: Psyche, Metaphor, Soma, with a specific focus on how disembodiment and the loss of the feminine principle engender the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Woodman, whose focus is on women whose food complex is...