Image Credit: Shrink Rap Radio
A Jungian Understanding of The Fat Complex with Cheryl Fuller on Shrink Rap Radio, is without a doubt one of the most informative and enlightening conversations I have listened to in a long time.
Whilst this podcast is a must listen for all – it is essential listening for mental health and wellness professionals.
Why?
Because amongst several thought changing discussions about fat phobia, fat trauma, unhealthy and healthy at any size, the war on obesity and the rise of anorexia, Cheryl discusses Yalom’s essay on the Fat Lady within the context of the fat shaming and thin privilege she personally experienced by several of her own counsellors and psychotherapists – where love and care, regardless of one’s size, is expectable.
She says,
“I have encountered what I call the thin gaze and with it the assumption that I should want to lose weight. The thin gaze, arising from thin privilege, is the objectifying gaze cast upon the fat person by someone who is not fat.”
About Cheryl Fuller
Cheryl Fuller is a Jungian psychotherapist living on the coast of Maine. She is passionate about depth psychology, psychotherapy, feminism and fat studies. Her new book, The Fat Lady Sings, weaves these threads into a tapestry of personal experience, critique of psychoanalytic theory and treatment of fatness, all in the context of the war on obesity. Her life is and has been the life of a fat woman which naturally feeds her interest in the lived experience of fat people, the absence of such voices in discussions of weight, and in the effects of fat phobia and what she terms the cultural fat complex.
She has published essays on Medea, fat politics, and embodiment. Cheryl holds a BA in Psychology from Duke University, an MA in clinical Psychology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in Jungian Studies from the Union Institute.
