About treatment options for bodies with weight problems in an age whose insignia is excess, a view from psychoanalysis

Abstract

The incidence of overweight and obesity in Mexico persists, as well as failure in addressing it, contrary to the official-medical discourse that attempts to regulate it. In many individuals the difficulty to adhere to a weight control treatment persists, beyond their will and their material and social resources to achieve it. In such cases, it is possible to assume that there is an unconscious dimension that disrupts the individuals’ lives and affects the way they usually operate. Such cases can be tackled with the psychoanalytic device, tackling as well the psychic complications present in those individuals for whom it becomes difficult to adhere to their weight control treatment and which are beyond the scope of official proposals to address them, such as the Mexican Official Regulation NOM-008-SSA3-2017. It is about listening to the individual, acknowledging their singularity, to what happens to them, not only regarding the difficulties they expe-rience in managing their weight or their weight itself, but also their lives; their own words are the privileged means to do so.