Food, Pleasure, And Sexuality

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

When working with clients, I have noticed that sexuality and eating behavior have an important similarity at their core - getting pleasure. The therapeutic value is not only the choice of the product (which is undoubtedly important), but also the very attitude to food and its use.

When working with sexuality, through eating behavior, it is worth paying attention to the following points (stages of work):

1. the client's self-image + the formation of positive motivation for work;
2. customer's idea of food;
3. food traditions of the client's family;
4. what traditions from the family the client took into his life, which he refused;
5. work with clients' favorite products, and topics that the client refused, considers them unacceptable for themselves;
6. work with the resource of sexuality;
7. work with the feelings and sexual inhibitions of the client;
8. formation of one's own strategy of sexual behavior and, accordingly, an attitude to food.

You will learn more about the specifics of working with sexuality through eating behavior from my book "Eating Behavior as a Hidden Resource of Sexuality", which I am currently working on, and now we will work with an example.

An example of working with this technique (only the important points of the consultation necessary for understanding the technique are taken):

Client: 35-year-old woman who decides to lose weight (we remember that food is a pleasure that depends on survival).

Request: I eat a lot at night, I want to lose weight without dieting

And so, getting rid of excess weight, the woman decides to give up her favorite sweets. She forbids herself to enjoy food.

Very often, overweight people have little source of pleasure, food being the main one. And so, giving up her favorite products, the client is giving up the main joy in life (in this case, the only one).

Do you think she will be able to lose weight? As practice shows, she will succeed. It is impossible to get the joy of losing weight when you have a lot of stress, lack of joyful motivation, anger from the lack of tasty food (meaning tasty for the client). The question arises, why the joy of a beautiful figure, when there is no more joy. And whether it was in full measure, after all, nobody canceled neurotic jams.

Back to sexuality. Sex is also a physical pleasure that could help the client with her diet. But, having complexes because of her appearance, a woman completely refuses this joy.

So it turns out, dubious pleasure from food (why dubious, because we eat without too much, without pleasure) and lack of sexual satisfaction. Scary somehow, isn't it?

Let's try to work with a small technique.

And so the technique:

Technique "Self Image and Eating Habits"

Purpose: to understand the client's self-image, to explore his capabilities and resources.

Materials: sheets, pen, if necessary, you can use the MAC (I recommend "My Story" for working with eating behavior).

Instructions:

Ask the client to tell about herself by the last phases of other people, which she heard in her address

Back to the above case! Our client described herself as follows:

- “There should be a lot of good people” - my mother used to talk about the girl when, during dinner in the family, when the girl was worried about her weight and did not want to eat some food

- "Thin people - sick people" - these remarks are also my mother's, a few weeks ago, when the woman decided to lose weight;

- "A woman should have something to take on" - I overheard from adults in childhood, who condemned "fat women" in the same conversations.

Based on the words of the client, we can see both a strong connection with the mother, and subconscious competition between women, self-denial and a lot of everything, but these concepts are presented only as an example in the article, we will not discuss the deep aspects of counseling the client in this article.

Invite the client to remember family concepts and food

In our case, these are:

"Bread is the head of everything" - an attitude towards the use and importance of flour (bread products).

And in truth, the client could not do without bread, pasta, rolls, pies.

“Eat now, otherwise you won't” - an attitude that you need to eat all the products on the table, otherwise no one will give you any further, and you will be hungry. This conviction guides the client to the fullest; she always eats all the goodies that appear at home in one sitting. A woman has an experience that others will eat everything tasty (Who? It is not clear). This behavior confirms the concept of "Who got up first, that and the slippers."

Formation of a positive attitude towards the result and obtaining a resource from previous experience

Give the client an introductory "Based on the beliefs you talked about earlier, decide what you want in life."

In our case, we worked as follows:

- "There should be a lot of good people" - to be good, you need to be fat, otherwise I am bad (+ good girls do not have sex, the issue was highlighted for consultation, but we will not do this here) - I am good by default and I will be good with a beautiful figure and a beloved man.

- "Thin people - sick people" - fear, if I lose weight, I will become sick - I boldly go to my dream, a happy future awaits me

- "A woman should have something to take on" - a woman should have large shapes that could be felt, and this is somehow disgusting - I am a beautiful woman and build relationships with men, on my own terms

"Bread is the head of everything" - you need to eat a lot of bread, love flour - I choose the food I want myself (at this stage, the client had to learn to understand her needs for food, and learn to add variety to her diet)

“Eat now, otherwise you won't” - you need to eat everything now - I live in an abundant world where there is a lot of delicious food and I can afford any goodies at any time

"Whoever got up first got his slippers." - this means that if you do not eat everything first, then no one will leave you tasty - I am already big and can afford a lot of all sorts of goodies with the confidence that they are only mine.

Discussion. Feedback

The client realized how limited her diet was and faced the difficulty of what to eat next and what she wants. She was also surprised that her fear of "being left without tasty" still guides her.

At the end of the consultation, it was decided to go to a nutritionist to expand our boundaries in this matter.

I hope my knowledge was helpful to you. I would be grateful for your feedback on the methodology when working with clients or when working independently. Share your opinion in the comments.