Who Was the Girl Who Stopped Eating? The Tragic Case of Ellen West
                                
                                
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                                    5 min read                                
                            
                                In 1921, Ellen West, a pseudonym for a patient with a severe eating disorder and depression, committed suicide shortly after being released from a Swiss sanatorium. Her case, chronicled by psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger, became a landmark study in existential analysis, representing a tragic and complex answer to the question, 'who was the girl who stopped eating?'.