The Control Paradox: Understanding and Working with Anorexia and Bulimia
Catrina Brown, M.A., M.S.W.

Anorexia and bulimia are metaphors of women’s psychological distress in the face of contradictory social expectations. Women now experience uncertainty in their social roles, with conflicting pressures to be successful in their careers and as wives and mothers. In order to feel good enough, women often feel they must be “superwoman.” In spite of changes in their social roles, women are still pressured to attain the social ideals of physical beauty. In an uncertain environment a woman with a shaky sense of self can at least hope to gain approval by being thin. Today, preoccupation with weight reflects a need to focus on the body for a tangible source of self-esteem and sense of control. Controlling the body has become a precarious substitute for real control in women’s lives. While giving voice to women’s protests, anorexia and bulimia fail to change the actual circumstances to deal with conflict. As such, anorexia and bulimia are veiled protests, ones that most often go unheard. Susie Orbach has said, “Women speak with their bodies”1. For many women the body is the arena to express dissatisfaction and unhappiness. It is the site of their struggles. Instead of transforming their real lives, their real problems, women attempt to transform their bodies. Women are promised success, happiness and control through attaining the ideal thin body. While many women feel more in control of their lives when they are controlling their food intake or feeling thin, this focus on weight is extremely disempowering for nothing is really changed. Weight control becomes a substitute for controlling the real issues in their lives over which women may feel they have no control. This is an experience common to many, if not most women who are weight preoccupied, who diet or exercise