New Ideas about Eating Disorders

In this book, Charles Stewart discusses how the positive affects of the life instinct such as interest and joy, and the crisis affects such as fear, anguish, rage, shame and contempt, condition and can even dissociate the hunger drive, thereby contributing to either positive or negative attitudes toward eating.New Ideas About Eating Disorders presents clinical case studies of individuals from infancy to adulthood suffering from various eating disorders, a new theory as to their etiology, and suggestions for treatment and prevention.This book will be essential reading for all professionals engaged in caring for patients experiencing an eating disorder and for those developing theories to deepen our knowledge of these disturbances. It will also be of interest to those in the field of analytical psychology, as well as anyone wanting to know how contemporary affect theory can help us understand eating and its disorders.

"In the literature on psychotherapy, it is a rare author who can motivate us to take up the burden of emotion in a region of experience like eating, where many of us would simply prefer to be unthinkingly happy, but because Charles Stewart does so in a way that makes difficult emotions actually easier to hold, reading his work has the paradoxical effect of actually lightening our load." - John Beebe, From the Foreword."I approached this book as a clinical psychologist whose work includes participation in an eating disorders team at a large state hospital in the Western Cape. I have always been struck by the multi-faceted nature of the phenomenology, aetiology and treatment approaches to do with eating disorders, and at times have wondered if I could attain a more consistent, reliable thread through the maze of theories, treatment approaches and different patients' behaviour and histories (which are also not always completely known). So it was with excitement about 'new ideas' and a desire to improve my knowledge that I read Stewart's book. I was pleased with what I found." - Colin Mitchell, Mantis, Volume 24, No. 1, Summer 2012, "In the literature on psychotherapy, it is a rare author who can motivate us to take up the burden of emotion in a region of experience like eating, where many of us would simply prefer to be unthinkingly happy, but because Charles Stewart does so in a way that makes difficult emotions actually easier to hold, reading his work has the paradoxical effect of actually lightening our load." - John Beebe, From the Foreword"I approached this book as a clinical psychologist whose worl includes participation in an eating disorders team at a large state hospital in the Western Cape. I have always been struck by the multi-faceted nature of the phenomenology, aetiology and treatment approaches to do with eating disorders, and at times have wondered if I could attain a more consistent, reliable thread through the maze of theories, treatment approaches and different patients' behaviour and histories (which are also not always completely known). So it was with excitement about 'new ideas' and a desire to improve my knowledge that I read Stewart's book. I was pleased with what I found." - Colin Mitchell, Mantis, Volume 24, No. 1, Summer 2012

Charles T. Stewart is a retired child psychiatrist living in Berkeley, California. He worked in Community Mental Health from 1958-1966 and 1977-1994, where he directed programs, treated patients, consulted with staff, and taught psychotherapy to trainees. From 1966 to 2008 he conducted a private practice in Berkeley, providing psychotherapy to children, adolescents, and adults.