A Body Neither for Myself nor for the Other

Hellena, a Contemporary Reading of the Case of Ellen West

Abstract

This theoretical essay presents a phenomenological reading of the case of Ellen West articulated alongside the contemporary clinical narrative of Hellena, a young woman diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Both narratives reveal a profound suffering rooted in the experience of the body, identity, and intersubjectivity, in which anorexia nervosa emerges as an existential response to the difficulty of being-with-others. The refusal of food, the retreat into isolation, and the fragmentation of one’s relationship with their own body reflect a struggle against the perceived invasiveness of the other’s gaze and desire. Love, as a possibility of being and existing in the world, becomes intertwined with fear, idealization, and bodily withdrawal. From this perspective, anorexia nervosa arises as a form of identity reorganization in response to the fragility of the self and the collapse of intercorporeality. Thus, love and the lived body emerge as central dimensions for understanding the suffering and existence of those who, paradoxically, search for safety through self-reduction from the Other and from themselves.