Seeking "normal"

These days I am reading and reflecting on several books, among them Barbara Stevens Sullivan's The Mystery of Analytical Work: Weavings from Jung and Bion and Natalie Boero's Killer Fat: Media, Medicine, and Morals in the American "Obesity Epidemic". This week these thoughts from them came together for me: most of the people to whom I spoke talked about a desire to lose weight to be normal, to be able to wear a smaller size, to blend in, and to avoid the stigma and discrimination faced by fat people. This pattern held not only for people like Tina, who had undergone surgery in order to lose weight, but also for people engaged in less invasive weight-loss attempts.Natalie Boero. Killer Fat: Media, Medicine, and Morals in the American "Obesity Epidemic" (Kindle Locations 49-51). Kindle Edition.  and this Patients typically seek a “cure” for their wounds, their anxiety, their obsessions and addictions. Jung denies that “perfection” – which may be thought of as a synonym for “cure” – is possible. My own experience, on both sides of the couch, suggests that even “healing” may be a problematic word. In some sense, a person is her wounds. A sapling, planted beside a supportive stake that the gardener neglects to remove, will grow around the stake. The stake’s presence will injure the growing tree; the tree will adapt by distorting its “natural” shape to accommodate the sta...
Source: Jung At Heart - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs