Hunger for Life: A Memoir (English Edition)

Hunger for Life (previously titled the Suicide Gene) is the incredible story of one woman’s desperate plight to escape the nightmare of her eating disorder only to be kept as a virtual slave for 23 years by her psychotherapist. It describes the shame, guilt and physical destruction caused by her bulimia and how she came to be gradually drawn in by a cult-like therapist who ultimately would insist on complete subservience and obedience to his will. Dependent on him for all but the most basic decisions of daily life, she was to embrace years of sleep deprivation, psychological torture, verbal abuse, endless solitude and brain washing. Forced to have no contact with her family and to pay three-quarters of her income to her practitioner, the book tells how she survived the years of slavery and went on to escape her captor. The last part of the book explores the genetic pathology underlying bulimia and binge eating disorder and provides resources and information aimed to help those still suffering.