The Will to Power: Its Expression in Some Cases of Mental Anorexia

Abstract

This paper analyzes Adler's concept of “will to power” as applied to specific cases of anorexia nervosa, identifying it as a central element in neurotic processes that are deeply out of harmony with reality. In particular, the will to power manifests itself as a distorted compensatory response to feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, rooted in early childhood experiences and in educational and family contexts. In the clinical cases examined, the will to power emerges in self-destructive forms, characterized by emotional rigidity, difficulties in emotional relationships, and rejection of the body as an object of needs and desires. Through the analysis of four clinical cases of young patients suffering from anorexia nervosa, common elements are highlighted: problematic family relationships, a tendency to control and deny needs, and difficulty in establishing equal and mutually beneficial relationships. The body becomes a theater of conflict and an instrument of self-affirmation, but also the victim of a regressive process, in which weight loss represents a form of power and punishment. In each case, the anorexic symptom is an expression of an extreme will to power, which replaces the possibility of harmonious growth and adult relationships with infantile and omnipotent relational modes. Psychotherapy, in its objectives, aims to reconstruct the personality through the adoption of new and more functional forms of compensation, capable of leading the subject towards greater emotional and relational maturity. However, resistance to change, which is also strongly expressed in the therapeutic context, makes this path particularly long and complex. Anorexia, as an extreme expression of the will to power, is therefore an important clinical sign of the severity of psychopathological distress