The present Master's dissertation defended at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo aimed at understanding the clinical phenomenon of refusal or selectivity of food from a Winnicottian point of view. Despite being a relatively common phenomenon in children, the dissertation was based on the clinical case of an adult patient. The hypotheses put forward deal with obsessive defences erected against a possible unconscious voracity or even the impossibility of making use of the object. Since this is qualitative research, new studies on the subject are suggested.