FAT LADY YALOM PDF
But when I see a fat lady, I move down a couple of rungs on the ladder of human Her New York therapist had referred her to Dr. Yalom. She’d. Section 2 > Exercise 4 > Obesity: body image and culture. The following passage opens Irving Yalom’s story, “Fat Lady.” In this story, Yalom, a psychiatrist, tells. Fat Lady. Yalom, Irvin. Primary Category: Literature / Nonfiction and “disgusted” by fat women, that his “contempt surpasses all cultural norms.
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TRUE TALES FROM A FLAWED THERAPIST
I felt myself flushing. So deep do they run fwt I never considered them prejudice. The essay goes on to talk about the process of therapy, of Betty’s depression, and her weight loss, which by the time treatment ends amounts to pounds. Once, when he learned about the spread of his cancer to his brain, I held him in my arms while he wept.
I was moved now when she told me how she cried herself to sleep. It’s the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relation- ship that heals — my professional rosary.
Now committed to being entirely “present” with Betty, I tried not to flinch from any of her questions. We repeated that same scenario several times. For stripping away my sweet illusion and revealing its base of flesh — flesh on the rampage?
The day Betty entered my office, the instant I saw her steering her ponderous two-hundred-fifty-pound, five-foot-two-inch frame toward my trim, high-tech office chair, I knew that a great trial of countertrans- ference was in store for me. Betty insisted she was taking huge risks, yet, as I said to her, “Betty, you rate yourself ‘ten,’ yet it didn’t feel that way to me. I ached for her when she described the starving child within her howling, “Feed me! Was there nowhere in the world an odor-free place?
On that point I needed no persuasion. That was precisely the situation with Betty: She knew that when the flame went out she would die, and she felt helpless as she watched it get smaller and smaller. Often I look forward all day to a special meal; and, when the craving strikes, no obstacle can block my way to the dim sum restaurant or the gelato stand. No, not just admired: People in California had their own tight cliques and did not welcome strangers. The first step in all therapeutic change is responsibility assumption.
Yet, in a more reflective moment, I realized that Betty may have plunged so deeply into therapy because of, not despite, our limited time frame. What other options were there? Search the history of over billion web pages on the Internet.
She sensed their dread that she might crowd them by sitting next to them. Why had I not asked her more about her yalo habits? She went on a liquid Optifast diet, ate no solid food, bicycled forty minutes every morning, walked three miles every afternoon, and bowled and square-danced once a week.
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She reflected that she had to be entertaining to keep others interested in her. But it wasn’t the whole truth. When she began to digress further — extending the discussion to airline seats and how seated passengers’ faces grew white with fear when she started down ladh aisle searching for her seat — I interrupted her, repeated my request, and defined “one” as “casual conversation at work. She had occasional brief ladu of pride and exhilaration especially when she went shopping for slimmer clothingbut mainly she experienced such deep despondency that it was all she could do to get herself to work each morning.
I knew a way. Some- times countertransference is dramatic and makes deep therapy impossi- ble: The truth was that this was a very boring lady, and I needed to confront her with that in some acceptable way.
She thought about our discussions between sessions, had long imaginary conversations with me during the week, looked forward to our meetings, and felt angry and disappointed when business travel caused her to miss meetings.
Without him there, I was next in line. I don’t know how seriously to take him— everyone in California is such a health nut. She remembered the precise moment. I have always been repelled by fat women. This led naturally into the other primary reason I found Betty so boring: That was the first important discovery I made about Betty: She cooked and she fed me — she ywlom real good at that — but she was weak — I was the one protecting her.
She added that she had a lot of friends, but no one knew her.
Moreover, the painter-therapist had sprayed death — her father’s death, her own death — into her house. Laxy have no doubts? Ultimately I would have to help her assume responsibility for her appearance — but saw no leverage for achieving that at this time. But could I relate to Betty?