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Elie, 17 months old, was hospitalized due to developmental delays in his height and weight, related to his refusal to eat. When we became acquainted with him, the baby seemed pale and disembodied. But he demonstrated that he had not renounced his own existence despite the fact that his own survival was at stake: the toddler reminded us of this during his feeding times, even as those close to him worried about his symptoms and histrionics. Elie became progressively more aware of his own existence, which he recognized through the emotions and attention of the pediatric personnel, who were gradually able to reach him by engaging him by other means than through his nutrition disorder. The toddler learned to restructure his survival and his existence harmoniously, to experience pleasure and to please others: eating became a pleasurable experience, not only a condensation, in a dramatic way, of all the possible interactions with others.