The Trauma of Being Fat with Cheryl Fuller PhD

Soul Sessions with Jodie Gale

In this episode, Cheryl Fuller PhD, Jungian psychotherapist talks about her passion for depth psychology, psychotherapy, feminism and fat studies. Her 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. Cheryl and I discuss Irvin Yalom's, The Fat Lady (his client Betty) and wonder together what she really needed as a fat woman seeking therapy. We talk about how living in a fat body is a trauma, racism and BMI, representation of all body sizes in the media, and how losing weight is not the solution. This episode is also a must for therapists; Cheryl says we must work on our own fat bias and body acceptance so that we do no harm to our clients.