There is no universal rule for pleasure. It is an emotion and sensation that all individuals seek in their lives, but which they find in different ways. We find it in love, in company, in sex, in praise, in receiving recognition. However, pleasure does not come exclusively from those external inputs that we categorize as “positive” but there are those who find pleasure subordinate/underlying to pain.
From the hand of Herder Editorial, our bookstores are brought to you: To Eat, To Vomit, To Torture, a moving work by psychotherapists Giorgo Nardone and Mathew D. Selekman that addresses the behavior of an ordinary person when faced with mental disorders that generally resemble the extravagant and unnatural, such as eating too much, vomiting, and self-harm with the aim of alleviating suffering or seeking a thrill of pleasure.
Self-aggression is an increasingly widespread mechanism in society, especially among young people and adolescents, according to Nardone and Selekman. For both authors, there are no categorical differences in the diagnosis of what, apparently, seem to be two different behaviors: bulimia and self-harm. Both pathological behaviors are two sides of the same coin that play an anesthetic and compensatory role against other sufferings that the individual has not been able to overcome during his growth and that remain anchored in the present, acting as a continuous torture. Faced with internal discomfort, we generally tend to cover them up and cover them up with any excuse from our reality: constant work, focusing on other people's pain, taking on the role of savior in front of others, building a shell, avoiding dialogue.
In the most extreme cases, however, the easiest way to avoid feeling that suffering is to provoke it again. And that is the crux of self-aggression, such as bulimia or self-harm. Compulsive eating and experiencing it as a natural behaviour; causing wounds with a razor blade; making vomiting a continuous and necessary habit after eating; scratching oneself until it bleeds. Behaviours that we see socially as inconceivable and very different, but that end up seeking the same thing: relief. In this sense, Nardone clearly points out that they are two sides of the same coin that must be treated equally.
In the course of the work, the authors propose the possibility of a therapeutic method of rapid and strategic intervention that allows the patient to overturn the perverse logic of the disorder that has become habitual in his life. The therapeutic proposal is based on a technological approach that resolves the most effective solutions, that is, «those that are developed on the ground, those that define and describe the pathology.» The materialization of these theories, which have taken years of development, is Brief Therapy, founded by Giorgio Nardone himself.
A rigorous and flexible model that, shifting the perspective from the study of problems to the study of solutions, offers a rapid intervention with an average duration of twelve sessions. Through these sessions, the authors and specialized therapists affirm, it is the patient's own knowledge that derives from the concrete change in his life, and not from a theoretical or statistical framework, as most cognitive-behavioral therapies are usually based on. In the words of Nardone: «this is not intended to be a display of personal merits, but a way of affirming the empirically proven efficacy of a therapeutic model, with respect to the widespread and sometimes arrogant presentation of treatments that are considered based on empirical evidence, through the use of a methodology promoted by pharmacotherapy.»
To gorge oneself, to vomit, to torture oneself also includes, by way of example, the presentation of several clinical cases that have been treated using Brief Therapy, showing the observed results and demonstrating its possible effectiveness.
Authentic Italian essence
The academic world of psychology is not unaware of the name of Giorgio Nardone (1958). Internationally recognised as one of the “most creative” therapists in terms of study and research, he founded Brief Strategic Therapy and Strategic Problem Solving, therapeutic disciplines that seek a direct solution to the problem affecting the individual. “Getting fed up, vomiting, torturing oneself” is his latest work, but he has a long track record in the publication of numerous works that have become a theoretical and practical reference for studies, psychotherapists and managers around the world. Nardone, a psychotherapist of Italian origin, directs the Centro di Terapia Strategica in Arezzo, founded together with the late communication expert Paul Watzlawick (1921-2007). He also directs international institutions such as the School of Specialisation in Brief Strategic Psychotherapy and the School of Communication and Strategic Problem Solving, with offices in Arezzo, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona.
You will soon be able to purchase the book from our store on-line!