Linda's Dissertation Advisor Dr. Elizabeth Nelson introduces

The First Bite

I have been imagining this moment for some time now, as Linda has. Probably without the same anxiety since I’m the midwife, not the mother to this creative birth, but with a great deal of excitement nonetheless. But how can one sum up, in just a few minutes, years of devoted, arduous, and joyful work?

For it has been all three of these things: devoted, arduous, and joyful. Linda has been a supremely devoted scholar, scouring the addiction literature for clues to its archetypal depths. She was seeking one nugget of gold: illumination about the “crossover” moment, as she described it 5 years ago, when the addict slides from conscious choice to unconscious compulsivity. In an early paper on her research topic, Linda said "Since food is about being nurtured, fed, receiving care and love, and being satisfied, one of my questions and assumptions is that compulsive overeating frequently begins in an initial wound, one that could be considered a core traumatic wounding of parental, and probably, most often, maternal relationship.”

Linda shares how she arrived at her dissertation topic:

I would like to say that this topic was something I wanted to write about for a long time, and the dissertation finally provided the venue to do so. However, that would not be quite true. This topic, or at least its particular focus in the archetypes of the monstrous, found me! It is not what I thought would have been the focus of my dissertation and years of work. In fact, I had very little interest in novels, films, or theater when it came to the genre of horror stories. I can say with conviction that that is no longer the case. I have learned more about vampires and witches (intrapsychic and extrapsychic) than I ever thought I wanted to know!

It was through conversations with Elizabeth Nelson, my advisor, that the specific focus of the "first bite" ultimately emerged. As we circumambulated the issue attempting to appropriately narrow the study, the question of what happens in the initial key moment of compulsive descent resonated as a key to understanding the entire complex in greater depth. My research goal was to articulate the first moment of abduction into the phenomenon and understand the images at the core of the complex and action. It was in ultimately identifying and needing to befriend the vampires and witches as the intrapsychic images at the core of the complex that the phenomenon came to light and the phases of seduction and possession fell into place. Ultimately, although my dissertation does not specifically address healing, the vampires and witches are seen to be portals into the transformed and individuated Self.

Depth Psychology, and particularly Jungian theory, provides a pathway into and through the dark underworld of addictive attachment to food. My research brings one moment of the entire complex into the light. I am particularly grateful to the work of Marion Woodman, whose books, lectures, intensives, and private conversations helped to illuminate my research and whose work with the feminine, her insistence on the necessity of working with the body, and her understanding of addiction and eating problems through a Jungian perspective, contributed greatly to my research efforts.

DATE: Tuesday, March 23, 2010

TIME: 12:45 p.m.

PLACE: Room A, Ladera Lane Campus

CANDIDATE: Linda Adele Schultz

DISSERTATION TITLE: "The First Bite: An Archetypal Exploration of the Initial Impulse in Compulsive Eating"

PROGRAM-TRACK/YEAR: PhD-J; 2002

COORDINATOR: Dr. Pat Katsky

ADVISOR: Dr. Elizabeth Nelson

EXTERNAL READER: Dr. Wilkie Au

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore a particular moment in compulsive eating I term the "first bite phenomenon." In essence, it is comprised of an archetypal energy within an autonomous complex that, when activated, overpowers the ego. This results in an abduction where the sufferer acquiesces, submitting to a literal first bite of food that begins a cycle of compulsive, or emotional, eating.

This is an archetypal Jungian, hermeneutic investigation that addresses the question, "What is the first bite phenomenon in American women?" In this study, the images of the vampire and voracious witch emerge and are amplified. Personal story and published case material support this theory and provide a heuristic methodological element.

The vampire and witch are among the most prevalent images manifesting in contemporary American culture and psyche. This study probes the intrapsychic presence of the vampire and voracious witch. Seen as agents of ravenous desire with the intention of stealing one's life force, they are revealed as perverted, sinister images of the longing of the human spirit for Eros. Their insatiable hunger and desire is then seen to be cathected onto literal food. Consuming food temporarily sublimates the deeper longing of food for the soul. The complex, I theorize, manifests in the sufferer consequent to trauma, which may be subtle or blatant.

A majority of American women struggle with food issues, often trapped in cycles of dieting and bingeing, ever in pursuit of a culturally defined perfect body. The first bite is investigated from archetypal, personal, cultural, and psycho-somatic perspectives. Primary vampire lenses are Bram Stoker's Dracula and contemporary vampire incarnations. Voracious witch images are gleaned from fairy tales and myths of Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Medusa and the Dionysian maenads.

This phenomenon is a meaningful visitation of otherness within an archetypal or imaginal perspective. Understood as an alchemical experience of the nigredo, the first bite phenomenon is explored through two movements––seduction and possession. Dark and deadly, the vampire and witch are also seen to provide a portal for the possibility of healing and individuation.

THE DISSERTATION DEFENSE OF DR. LINDA SCHULTZ

Linda with her external reader, Dr. Wilkie Au, author of THE ENDURING HEART: SPIRITUALITY FOR THE LONG HAUL and URGINGS OF THE HEART: A SPIRITUALITY OF INTEGRATION

             Linda with her husband Art

Linda with Kathleen Barry (left), Pam Bjork (center), and Sandra Easter (right), and her dissertation advisor Elizabeth Nelson (bottom right)

In that same paper, Linda went on to quote Woodman and Dickson (1997), who said: “you can see in their glazed eye the moment the archetypal energy vanquishes the ego. No one is home. So long as the ego container is not strong enough to relate to that numinous power without identifying with it, destruction lies ahead” (p.6). This was the first clue that Linda would ultimately write about trauma and nigredo—the descent into the prima materia, that choking, suffocating place that few people have the capacity to capture in words because clarity is impossible and language seems beside the point. But Linda did write about the nigredo. “Arduous” hardly captures the feel of it.

And it was a joy, too. We shared many wonderful lunches—mostly at the Cheesecake Factory in Marina del Rey—where we would try the patience of our long-suffering servers who could barely interrupt the excited flow of conversation long enough to take our order and returned to our table, silently, to refill our glasses umpteen times. Honestly, the conversation was so rich the food was almost beside the point! It was during these times, in particular, that I had the great fortune to guide Linda toward her muse, toward the eros in the work. And it was between us, one day, when the phrase “the first bite” leapt into our imaginations.

The first bite would be the lead we would follow, and the center of gravity for the research, as Linda circumambulated her dissertation. To quote Naomi Lowinsky, “something tugs at you, a phrase, an image. It has life energy, and if you honor it, if you follow it, you can unlock what you didn't know you had locked away, you can discover what you never knew." (The Sister from Below, 2009, p. 125)

But Linda has always known. This was a very personal journey in which she traveled out only to return home, bearing gifts of wisdom for all of us. Linda, thank you.

The issues around food and problems with food for women in American culture have, however, been of interest to me for many years.   In my personal struggles with emotional, or compulsive, eating, I have long sought a way to understand and heal around those issues. And I am far from alone. It has been said to me personally, and written in the literature of eating disorders that problems with food in some way affect every woman in this culture. The magnitude of that reality was an invitation to consider that a depth psychological research project that addressed compulsive eating was a valuable endeavor. During the years of my coursework, I addressed this topic through various lenses, and realized the complexity of the issue and its inability to be defined in any single paradigm or once and for all solution. Its complexity encompasses psychological, physical, cultural, psychosomatic, and spiritual dimensions. It became clear that any good research study involving compulsive eating would need to consider this interdisciplinary perspective. The desire to continue my research into this very necessary issue came as a call deep within my psyche, and was affirmed again and again by those with whom I spoke, many of whom were seeking answers  themselves and needed something more than the quick-fixes found on any bookstore shelf.