About Personal Space and Body Shape

Back in the 1980's there was a research project here at EastWest Institute using hypnosis on obese women to find the unconscious source of their compulsion to eat. The results were surprising! In some cases the real cause of the excess fat was an attempt to be physically large. Some terms used were, "I want to be seen" and "So others will not run over me."

In another case, the client was a professional woman who had a body shape like an over-weight man with large barrel-shaped chest and stomach. She did not have the usual feminine fat placement on her hips and breasts. She stated under hypnosis that in her work she had to compete with men and wanted to appear as successful as them. She was of German descent and described how, to her, a successful man had a huge stomach and barrel chest. She even had a complimentary German phrase about successful barrel shaped men of high status. Unconsciously she was building her own body to appear high status with a barrel shaped chest and stomach. She actually grew to fit her mental image of what a successful person should look like, in spite of diets and exercise programs for years.