The author contests the current opinion about anorexia nervosa concerning the family structure in which the patients grow up. The mother is, according to his experience, not a dominering but rather an uncertain personality, usually with more or less pronounced feelings of inferiority and consequently too indulgent to withstand the cautious but persistent demands of her daughter. The mother seldom realises sufficiently how she is manoeuvred into consenting to these wishes. But the daughter experiences her mother as a dominering and directing sort of person when she won't comply with these wishes and, notwithstanding the opposition of her daughter, finally forcibly takes the measures that are thought necessary. By the persistent pressure that she has put on her mother the first one has gradually obtained a position of preference which she refuses to abandon when she has to change her affective position towards her parents in puberty and adolescente. The father is anything but the passive, aloof and unassuming man as he is generally believed to be, but an understanding and considerate father who shows sufficient concern about the education of his children, but not in an authoritative way. Staying at home with her parents means for the girl cosiness, intimacy and reliability and she tends to oppose consciously (and only for a small part unconsciously) the evolution to maturity, both sexual and social, because she fears the implications of this exacting development, although longing to become independent. From their early youth all these girls are nervous, uncertain and uneasy. It may be that a neurotic development goes together with this consciously provoked anorexia-syndrom, but it is anything but necessary. Consequently it is not therapeutic efficient to separate these girls from their paternal homes for the simple reason that is doesn't lead to any solution. Orthopedagogical counseling of the parents is to be preferred and when their daughter has become about 18 years old and is intelligent enough to understand their conscious conflicts it is desirable to talk these over with her.