The Fat Lady Book Report In the third story of Loves Executioner: “The Fat lady” , Dr.Yalom decides to treat a twenty-seven year old overweight woman named, Betty. Though Dr. Yalom was reluctant to treat Betty at first due to her being obese, Dr. Yalom decides to put aside his counter-transference issues and views treating Betty as a way to improve his skills as a therapist. Not only does Dr.Yalom learn throughout treating Betty that there was more substance to her than he had initially anticipated, but he connects with betty while overcoming his counter-transference issues,helping Betty uncover the pathology of her depression and discovering her identity. First and foremost is Dr.Yaloms first meeting and reactions toward Betty. During first initial meeting, Dr. Yalom is taken back by Betties physical appearance as Dr.Yalom goes into explicit detail for his distaste for fat woman as he states, “I always been repelled by fat women. I find them disgusting: their absurd sidewise waddle, their absence of body contour,breasts,laps,buttock,shoulders,jawlines,cheekbones, everything I like to see in a woman obscured in an avalanche of flesh.” (Yalom, 2000 p. 94) Dr. Yalom proceeds asking the the typical questions what is troubling her as Betty tells Dr.Yalom that she is depressed and her eating has been out of control. Dr. Yalom, realizing his counter transference issues may make it hard for him to relate or even treat Betty, instead he views Betty as a challenge of being able to overcome his aversion toward fat women as a way of better helping future patients. In the next few sessions Dr.Yalom finds Betties endless chatter about her life extremely unmoving. Dr.Yalom describes their talks as, “cocktail chatter” with no real substa... ... middle of paper ... ...Yalom, 2000) Betty then inquires about those changes as Dr.Yalom embarrassing admits he did not feel comfortable with obese people. Betty berates Dr.Yalom telling him that he never once touched her in the whole therapy session, let alone look at her directly for the first six months. Betty also tells Dr.Yalom, Ironically, Betty tells him how she cant stand fat people either and thats why she has a distaste for groups. Dr.Yalom then gives her a hug, surprised that he is able to put his arms around the once obese two hundred and fifty pound woman. Not only in the end did Dr.Yalom learn to move past his counter-transferense issues he had with fat women, but he grew with his patient as they both took something away from therapy, Dr.Yalom being empathetic and moving past Bettys intital obese appearance, and Betty appreciating life in the now and becoming a real identity.
She has a relapse before leaving which causes concern among the staff but still leaves although it was against their medical advice. In the end of the film we learn that she has another relapse and began to continue to rapidly lose weight. Shelly is a 25-year-old psychiatric nurse who admits herself into the center after ten hospitalizations. She enters the Center at the beginning of the film with a feeding tube that was surgically implanted in her stomach. She arrived weighing only 84.3 pounds, having been anorexic for six years and tube fed for five of those years. She has an identical twin, Kelly, who does not have an eating disorder. Along with her eating disorder she suffers from a dependence on various mood stabilizers and tranquilizers that she claims helped her to cope with her depression. She forms a close friendship with Polly, another patient in the Center. Throughout the film she has verbal altercations with some of the staff who accuse her of still purging. In the end of the film we earn that after discharge she lost 17 pounds, went back to being a nurse, is married and continues to struggle with her disorder. Polly has been at Renfrew for six weeks and admitted herself after a suicide attempt over two slices of
Obesity and opposition are the two main issues of this film. The issue of obesity, treated lightly in the beginning of the film and then severely by the end, reflects society’s approach to weight loss. To ...
Described within the vignette is a nineteen year old teenager named Brandy. Similar to girls her age, Brandy has difficulties dealing with her body image and self-esteem. For instance, she experiences hopelessness, isolation, sadness, and anxiety that all contribute to Brandy’s acknowledgement of her physical appearance. She completely overestimates her body size to the point of taking dieting pills then defaulting to purging. During the typical day, the meals are scarce but healthy compared to a bad day full of unhealthy snacking. Lastly, her family predicament is not a supportive one at that. Her mother was obese so she constantly dieted while Brandy’s father illustrated signs of sexual interest although he never physically touched her.
Rachel recalls that whenever she would see a picture of herself she would fell repulse and sick to her stomach. She said she hated her nose and the whole right side of her face. Her lips where too flat, her lips where uneven, and her neck was too long that she looked like a duck. As time went on she developed obsessive compulsive disorder and used to wash her face at least 30 times a day. Rachel wouldn’t leave her house for 7 years because she was too ashamed of what people might think of her appearance. Rachel even tried to cut off the fat from her leg with a regular kitchen
The author’s intended audience is most likely to people who are experiencing the disorder or are interested in knowing more about eating disorders. When Lia was admitted to New Seasons, her rehabilitation facility, she relates her experience to someone who has gone through the struggles in that kind of facility. Lia was expected to be “a good girl [by not poking holes] or write depressing poetry and [eat and eat]” (Anderson 18). Her struggles in the facility allowed the audience who experienced this disorder to relate their experiences. In addition, people who choose to starve...
In the story, “Loves Executioner”, Yalom treats and old woman named “Thelma” that is overly obsessed with a man named Matthew, her former therapist from ten years ago. Yalom feeling though that he is drawn to the facets of her dilemma decides to do everything he can to empower Thelma move past the obsessions that had been wrecking havoc on her mental health. Although Thelma’s love obsession with her therapist, and her subjective experiences on life of what is preventing her from living in the present, Yalom attempts to treat a 70-year-old woman only to learn that being love executioner more complicated as he had anticipated.
Terry Yarber, a single overweight mother of a sixteen year old and two adolescents, wipes away the salty tears from her pale face so that her daughter does not see the fear inside her. Weighing only ninety one pounds, strapped to a hospital bed with a tube down her throat is a girl named Sherie. Sherie thinks the thought of food is repulsive. For instance, she doesn't bother to count calories, carbohydrates, or watch out for bad fat or good fat. Sherie does not bother to eat at all. The most she has had to eat in the last three days are two baby carrots, one slice of low carbohydrate bread, and one leaf of lettuce. While Ms. Yarber sits next to her daughter, she try's to look in to her deep blue crystal eyes but all she sees is a hallow glaze staring back at her. She tells Sherie the news that was just given to her by the doctor. "Unfortunately, she is isn't letting her body get the kind of nutrients it needs. If she does not start eating she will die a painful death. In fact, she is starving herself" said Dr. Roth. Teenage anorexia is a simple diet that has become an obsession. That person concentrates extraordinary energy on the diet, which can become more important, then anyone or anything else in the world. (Sacker 10)
Body image is among of the top reasons for developing psychological conditions in the country based upon the bias of what is shown through the screen. Since the nineteen-nineties an alarming trend has come to pass as a result in the growing epidemic of obesity in the United States, to oppose this the exact opposite became popular to become skeletal in appearance with bones showing naturally through the skin. Becoming an accepted notion to starve in order to attain this new angelic appearance, rising above the notion of overly plentiful food by not eating until the body became undernourished. Even the naturally thin models were not skinny enough trying to appeal to this new craze. The resulting effects became depression in this pursuit of perfection, with competition becoming higher among women with finding mates, with this idealized persona becoming the image to men of what women should
Marya Hornbacher was born on April 4th, 1974, her parents were well-known actors and directors in Walnut Creek, California. She led a chaotic childhood, consisting of a major move to Minnesota, an anxiety disorder, and most of all, perfectionism everywhere she turned, “I always felt there was an expectation that I would do one of two things: be great at something, or go crazy and become a total failure. There is no middle ground where I come from,” (Hornbacher, 281). Marya developed bulimia when she was nine years old, and when she moved away to attending boarding school at fifteen, she became anorexic. Her parents saw it as a phase and Marya did not go into treatment for another seven years, since then, she has had several relapses. Marya wrote her ...
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her
Charlotte will never be anything but a wife and mother with no room to become a writer. Dependent on her husband for emotional support as well as financial support, Charlotte did not outwardly disagree with John's diagnosis. Without much protest, Charlotte stays in one room for fear of being sent to Dr. Mitchell's for the Rest Cure. (4) Trapped in a room with no aesthetic pleasure, she was left to her own thoughts. Societal norms said th...
During my sophomore year in college, I had always restricted myself to a modest diet of long weekend nights alone reading or trying to watch as many films from the Criterion Collection as I could find. I would never get very far. I would always end up re-watching Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl. A film one critic noted for having a “brutal narrative structure”. Nothing sentimental about it; brutal. The mid-fifteenth century understanding of the word is most compelling to me: to be brutal is to relate to the lower animals. I found this to be true the night a friend texted me an address and demanded I meet her there within the next thirty minutes.
For an example in one particular scene, Tiffany has an episode of irritability towards her sister with assumption that her sister hates her; which included loud inappropriate comments and an abrupt exit. There were also symptoms shown such as an excess desire for sex. Tiffany casually talks about all the men she has slept with since her husband’s death, including “the whole office” at her previous job. This is a way she has learned how to deal with her depression.
Entrapment and Isolation are common attributes of characters throughout several of the stories in The Fat Man in History. This comes across in many forms, both physical and mental. In most of the stories both entrapment and isolation often the result of the interaction of both. Stories which this theme is apparent are Crabs, Windmill in the West, and A Report on the Shadow Industry. In all of these stories characters are both entrapped and isolated by their behaviour and environment. They are not totally entrapped or isolated in all situations as they can change their behaviour to avoid this, however some of the stories depicting characters isolated or entrapped by their environment have less choice in their situation.
Like the girl in the book Next to Nothing, the person she showed her family and friends was happy, smart, valedictorian of her high school, top of her class in college, and she just seemed to have her life all together. Except no one saw the girl that would eat the amount of calories she thought was right or the endless times she wore out shoes on the treadmill. She would starve for days than give in and binge eat. She had that perfectionist mentality. She admits to being miserable. She almost died from her eating disorder. “They wind up consuming you whole. They will kill you, if you let them” (Arnold 2). Over a period of seven years, she attended therapy, hospitalizations, residential treatment, and physical and emotional heartache. She claims to not be cured because her ED (eating disorder) points out when she is not as this as she wants. She talks about how no one told her the dangers but instead she got compliments of how good she looked which made her think she was doing the right thing. She makes a comment about the social pressure for thinness. “I was never thin enough to appease my eating disorder” (Arnold