"If it weren't for reality, I'd feel great," is how a client of Karen Horney once described her condition. When he was alone with himself, had mental conversations with his wife and put the right words into her imaginary mouth, when the circumstances seemed certain to him, everything went perfectly. Until we meet unexpected manifestations of the outside world. And this upset him very much. Many years later, a woman was sitting in my office and complaining about dozens of sweets eaten a day. And there was no sadness for her to continue eating them, but 30 kilograms of excess weight and the threat of diabetes spoiled reality. The endocrinologist referred her to me for a consultation and it’s not to say that she came with great desire. But she agreed to work and then all hell broke loose in front of us. She was tormented by nightmares, childhood memories surfaced, although at first she talked about it in monosyllabic and neutral terms. Bouts of overeating became more frequent amid growing anxiety, the cause of which we could not grasp. We were able to break the chain of overeating after a few months, when the picture of an extremely unstable and rejecting relationship finally began to emerge, where there was cruelty and corporal punishment. The only thing she was spoiled with was candy .And in the world of a little lonely girl, candy became... living imaginary interlocutors. She talked to them, and they became her imaginary comforters and listeners. Was there a chance to stop eating candy just because of its calorie content? Eating disorders allow you to replace reality in a more manageable and controllable direction. Food is something that will never betray, it can be shredded, pouring out anger, filling the stomach, softening strong feelings, celebrating or sharing loneliness with it. But it will not replace a living person. And being yourself with Another is very unreliable. It was in this reality of anxiety that we worked, transforming it into increasingly stable and predictable relationships. And 30 kg began to melt because there was no need to eat candy in such quantities. I hope I manage to convey to you, dear readers, a simple idea - losing weight is not counting calories and playing sports. Until it is possible to distinguish the needs for hunger from the need for human interaction, all attempts to lose weight only through diet and sports in the case when food carries an unusual burden of human relationships are doomed to failure. Seek help in time. Madina Kairova A group on conscious awareness will be launched in May food in St. Petersburg. Read the details on my page and sign up for an interview.