{"id":3265,"date":"2020-08-15T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2020-08-15T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/?p=3265"},"modified":"2020-02-11T18:49:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T18:49:02","slug":"story-the-fat-woman-and-the-thin-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/15\/3265\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fat Woman and the Thin Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The story \u201cThe Fat Woman and the Thin Woman\u201d was developed while working with anorexic patients, and takes as its starting point the idea that even patients suffering from anorexia have a part of their personality which knows that they are underweight and which can engage in a conversation with the other part of their personality. The story is also based on the idea that the therapist should avoid representing the viewpoint \u201cyou are too thin\u201d, and should instead represent the ambivalence between the outer world, which assumes that the patient is \u201ctoo thin\u201d, and the client\u2019s inner world, which assumes that she is \u201ctoo fat\u201d. The task pursued in therapy is to initiate an inner dialogue between both viewpoints and parts of the personality, with the ultimate aim of negotiating a middle road and a \u201cthird way\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is not just one world, but two different worlds.\nThis must be the case, because we are not talking about the same world. We are\ntalking about different worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fat woman lives in the inner world. The fat woman\nis not very popular. Everyone in the inner world despises her, and everyone in\nthe outer world refuses to believe that she exists. The thin woman lives in the\nouter world. The thin woman is also not very popular, because everyone in the outer\nworld worries about her, and no one in the inner world believes in her. The fat\nwoman from the inner world does not believe in the thin woman from the outer world.\nShe can\u2019t work out why the people she meets claim to meet the thin woman every\nday. The thin woman from the outer world does not believe in the fat woman from\nthe inner world either, and she can\u2019t work out why the person most affected by\nall of this claims to see the fat woman every day. Who is right? Those who\nbelieve in the fat woman, or those who believe in the thin woman? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the thin woman and the fat woman live in people\u2019s\nheads \u2013 but in different worlds. They live on different planets. Now that we\nhave entered the age of technology, visiting other planets is simply a question\nof deciding on a means of transport. I can imagine boarding a special capsule\nwhich would take me out of the inner world and over to the outer world for a\nlimited period of time. That might be quite pleasant, since I\u2019d get rid of the\nfat woman on the way there, and I\u2019ve needed a break from her for a long time.\nThe price I\u2019d have to pay when visiting the outer world is that I might meet\nthe thin woman, even though I don\u2019t believe in her and perhaps don\u2019t want to\nbelieve in her. And apparently she doesn\u2019t look too great, but who knows. I can\nalso imagine that at the same time as me, in exchange so to speak, a second spaceship\nwould launch off from the outer world and fly to the inner world for a holiday\nin the fat women\u2019s world. Then they\u2019d know what it was like living with her day\nafter day, and would no longer deny her existence.\n\nI wouldn\u2019t go on this\njourney very often \u2013 why bother? Later I will send the fat woman herself on a\njourney to the thin woman, so that they can exchange experiences and learn from\neach other. I want the fat woman to learn from the thin woman, and the others\nwant the thin woman to learn from the fat woman. I\u2019ll stay at home and take a break\nfrom the fat woman. \n\n
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The story \u201cThe Fat Woman and the Thin Woman\u201d was developed while working with anorexic patients, and takes as its starting point the idea that even patients suffering from anorexia have a part of their personality which knows that they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3265"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3657,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions\/3657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}