Missing the Point

Perhaps the publication of the book “Holy Anorexia” by Rudolph Bell (Book Review, Jan. 19) will knock sense into people’s heads by adding a dash of medieval witchcraft--but I doubt it.

Reviewer Joan Jacobs Brumberg is reportedly writing a book about anorexia nervosa, but I fear she too will miss the point.

I’ve come to the matter in a current chapter on the “virginity deprivation” in my book on the psychology of women. Anorexia, I say, is a pseudo-pregnancy triggered by a psychosomatic mechanism I don’t pretend to understand. Helene Deutsch explained it lucidly and accurately in 1945. Freud’s case was Bertha Pappenheim of 100 years ago. Neither explains the trigger!

It has nothing to do with women’s liberation.

DAVID ALAN MUNRO

Laguna Beach