This case study presents an assessment of Keira, a 29-year-old Caucasian woman. In this study, Keira is involved in a homosexual relationship and is experiencing feelings of anxiety, irritability, and sadness of stemming from overwhelming emotions regarding her pregnancy. These mixed and abrupt emotions can be traced back to past events from Keira’s childhood relationship with her mother. Considering these factors, a psychoanalytically-orientated approach of object relations would be the most effective method of treatment.
Although it is apparent that Keira turns to the behavior of binge eating when she is extremely anxious or needs to alleviate anxiety, the internalization of her relations with her mother must be explored.
Until 29-year-old,…show more content… Also, Keira will then be able to rebuild a positive, cohesive and a flexible sense of a mother and child relationship. On the other hand, treatment must consider eating disorder as a coping method. Keira describes her mother as passive, sexually abusive and rejecting. From my understanding, there is a connection between deficits in the development of early relationship (s) and the use of food in adolescence/ adulthood.
Keira’s sudden awareness of her childhood abuse resulted in a tendency to over-invest eating restraint in order to help keep such emotions at bay. On the other side, Keira remembers healthy interactions with her mother and desire opportunities to replicate that with her future child. Then, once left alone, Keira is reminded of the reality of bad objects (her mother rubbing against her and accidentally touching her breast). In addition, Keira’s childhood attachment to her mother and silence/confusion about the abuse could be explained culturally. Our culture denies that mothers perpetrate sexual abuse; maternal incest frequently occurs undetected. Mother-daughter sexual abuse, especially, is under-recognized, under-researched and under-reported. With an indescribable event, living in a culture that provides little to no awareness of such experience, children victims may lack the awareness and the vocabulary to describe their mother’s sexual activities. Breaking the cycle, “will I be like my mother?” Will I abuse my own children?” becomes critical questions. Treatment must provide a fundamental, conscious, psychological separation between Keira and her
