BETWEEN THE BODY AND MEANING: AN ESSAY ON COMPULSIVE EATING AND COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY IN ADOLESCENCE

Abstract

This essay proposes an onto-epistemological reflection on compulsive eating in adolescence, understood as a phenomenon in which the body speaks what language silences. Based on the articulation between body, cognition, and culture, it seeks to interpret compulsive eating not as an isolated dysfunction, but as a form of existence and production of meaning. Dialoguing with authors such as Beck, Winnicott, Frankl, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Han, Bourdieu, and Butler, the text proposes an expanded reading of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), understanding it not only as a technique of cognitive restructuring, but as an ontology of acceptance – an ethical space of listening and self-reconstruction. The essay argues that compulsive eating expresses the conflict between the biological and the symbolic, instinct and norm, pleasure and guilt. In this context, thinking becomes a gesture of liberation, and acceptance, an act of resistance against the tyranny of image and the imperative of performance. Thus, CBT is revisited as a practice of reconciliation between body and language, capable of restoring to the subject the right to exist and signify their pain.