Problematizing Psychotherapy: The Discursive Production of a Bulimic

Abstract

This paper explores the discursive production of a psychologized bulimic subject. Two processes are highlighted through a case study, both influencing the production of the bulimic: therapeutic operations of power; and the subjugation of non-psy accounts of bulimia. Power mechanisms in therapy encourage the client to construct a complex psychological subjectivity, enabling a psychological, self-contained account of her eating disorder, thereby facilitating ‘therapeutic’ change. However, the condition for therapy is the disguised subjugation of client, lay and erudite non-psy accounts. The concealment of power operations reinforces psy’s hegemony in defining the person—and the bulimic—in western culture. After problematizing psy discourses, a non-psychologized feminist discourse is hypothetically considered, and dialogue with this discourse suggested. A feminist discourse does not require ideals of self-containment, nor complex psy accounts, but nevertheless offers the bulimic a range of political subjectivities as a discursive priority, rather than psychological complexity.