Around the table

Abstract

The dynamics around the dining room table on an Eating Disorders Unit, the patients' relationship with food and eating, together with those of the staff feeding them can all be seen as a reflection of the dynamics on the Unit at large and may externalize an individual's internal world. The three, hour‐long meals each day can be some of the most difficult hours on an Eating Disorders Unit, anxiety provoking and stressful. Within this paper I describe the behaviours observed around food and think about the feelings engendered at the table as experienced by both patients and staff members. Furthermore, as a single‐handed dietitian, working within a multidisciplinary team, I also consider my professional role on the Unit and within the feeding process. I shall draw upon psychoanalytic literature to explore the beginnings of the relationship between mother and infant that can be examined through the vital feeding relationship. When a person falls into the trap of an eating disorder, it frequently brings sufferer and parent, generally the mother, back into a relationship concentrating on food and feeding but in a far more fraught and painful manner. All names have been changed and some background details have been altered or omitted to protect identities.