A psychodynamic hypothesis on the Night Eating Syndrome

The Night Eating Syndrome (NES) is usually interpreted in organicistic and physiological terms. This paper looks at it dynamically in terms of the psychic dimension o the patient through an examination of the contrasting tensions (emptiness and fullness; sav ing and destroying the object, etc.) that are the unconscious cause of his NES. A relationship is suggested between nocturnal reawakenings as a form of eating behaviour and the undreamt or avoided dreams used by the patient as a defence against “perception” of the unconscious. (Eating Weight Disord. 4, 15–18, 1999) ©1999, Editrice Kurtis