The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and the Repressed Feminine--A Psychological Study (139p)

If you’ve struggled with obesity or anorexia — this book will really help you understand why.

Sometimes very dry and downright boring, the overall arc of this analysis is well worth the read and muddling through the dry text to understanding the core case studies. Woodman makes a strong case for the pervasiveness of eating disorders in our culture being strongly rooted in a mother figure with an overactive animus, and the lack of a strong father figure. I will definitely be referencing back to this book for a long time to come and I recommend it to anyone interested in Jungian psychology and the inherent subject matter of this book.

As a clinical psychology student, I was in search of resources that found where nutrition and depth psychology meet. This book illustrates just how deep food issues can go. Anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the psyche and food issues should read this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling with obesity or anorexia for the amazing insights Woodman has...for example, across the board those with these problems had negative, non supportive mothers. An important and unusual helpful perspective on this subject. Very profound book.

If you are familiar with jungian psychology, a fundamental work from Marion Woodman.Specially if you deal with patients with alimentary disorders.

Amazing!

Woodman wrote about eating disorders before they were vogue. Her personal insights through her own eating disorder and those of ther clients offer a deep look into these disorders. If you don't buy the Jungian perspective don't buy this book. But if you do you will find it well worth the price.

Sometimes this gets a little braniac for me, but it addresses some interesting emotional causes.

As a therapist I was keen to read this book.The first half was very interesting although, if you've already read around the topic, there's nothing groundbreaking in her ideas.The last two chapters, well...ummm...I have studied at postgraduate level and yet still felt that, unless you already have a strong foundation of knowledge on mythology, it was delivered in an accessible manner for the reader. I'm very interested in the subject matter but there was far too much assumption being made that the reader would already be well-versed on the topic.From this perspective she did little to demystify a complex subject matter and I was left, quite frequently, thinking to myself: 'What on earth is she on about?'

Tackling a difficult subject like this one is a mine-field for anyone but having read the book now, I feel Marion Woodman did an excellent job of examining the deeper issues behind eating disorders. Anyone who believes that calories in, calories out is all there is to weight management ought to read this book to see that the body-mind-spirit-psyche connections make it a much more complex and fraught matter than input-output. My only real criticism is that the book did little to examine and take apart out society's overweening belief that slim=beautiful & healthy and that fat=ugly &unhealthy. But that's a minor point.

Arrived in perfect condition. It is a very interesting read, but one that can't be done in a single sitting as there is a lot to take in.

not very helpful. too generic

Espléndido libro, como todo lo que escribía Marion Woodman. Lectura importante para psicoterapeutas que atienden a personas (principalmente mujeres) con trastornos alimentarios.