Riveting and exhilarating: Miss Julie, at Park90, reviewed

Some Demon by Laura Waldren is a gem of a play that examines the techniques of manipulation and bullying practised by shrinks on anorexics. The setting is an NHS referral unit where Sam, an 18-year-old philosophy student, arrives with a minor eating disorder. Like every patient, Sam is told that her personality is immersed in a civil war and that two implacable forces – the ‘diseased self’ and the ‘whole self’ – are fighting for control of her destiny. It’s a brilliantly simple trick that any bully can learn in a few minutes. If the patient says something unwelcome, the shrink ascribes the statement to the ‘diseased self’ and adds: ‘I don’t negotiate with the disease.’

The patient is taught to suppress the ‘diseased self’ and to act on behalf of the ‘whole self’, which happens to reflect the shrink’s interests.