OUTLINE OF CLINICAL PHENOMENOLOGY FOR EATING DISORDERS INSPIRED BY MERLEAU-PONTY’S PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The aim of this article is to propose an outline of clinical phenomenology for eating disorders inspired by the philosophical phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. We first describe the phenomenology of the body, showing how the discussions about habit and ambiguity between being and having a body can contribute to explain eating disorders. Next, we discuss the notion of the body schema as one that reveals the architecture of corporeality and the specific organization of being a body in eating disorders. Finally, we explore the notion of flesh to further investigate corporeality in eating disorders. The outline of clinical phenomenology for eating disorders sheds light on how being a body is rooted in the world. Focusing on experience, we highlight the changes of how the body experiences eating disorders that arise from intersubjective dynamics. It is a bodily experience composed of habits revealing an objectification of the body that leads to an imbalance between the subject body and the object body. Such a bodily experience is (dis)organized intercorporeality on the dimension of the body schema which is present in the carnality marked by (in)visibility, by the mirror, and by the endless circuit of incorporations.