Journal December 2025 Release - Flipbook - Page 36
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the voice as the source of oppression and formulate our resistance to the lies and
claims anorexia or SS had made over Joanna’s life.
In his letters, he showed us how to externalize anorexia and to understand that its
origins are rooted in historically established cultural discourses that have the
power to construct women as anorexic. This was practical hands-on learning for
me, as I had only known anorexia and bulimia as medically defined eating
disorders with a poor prognosis and no cure. As it was, Joanna’s story and
experiences were “riddled” with other psychiatric problems for which she
frequently sought treatment. David argued that anorexia, or SS as we came to call
it, was tenacious in its hold on Joanna, confining her and silencing her inside the
limits that it had set for her life. While I feared for her life, he fought for her life
through his emails. He was not prepared to let SS get away with anything.
We started to see that Joanna was permitted to live a different life from the one
SS held up for her. Through his letters, David showed us how to take a sliver of a
preferred story and ask the questions that will decorate it, populate it, and how
she may inhabit the story of her choice. Joanna’s art spoke volumes. She
designed The Bulb as a possible business logo for a practice in reflexology.
Holding a Bulb
Hope of a new life is represented in the bulb.
I root myself to the earth, just as the bulb will.
An Apprenticeship in Extremis
Journal of Contemporary Narrative Therapy, December 2025 Release, p. 5-44.
www.journalnft.com
