Funny thing-- I'm pretty much satisfied that conventional dieting is a mental disorder.

Well would you mind defining "conventional dieting" and "mental disorder"?

The failure rate is caused by a lack of respect for feedback from emotions and body.

I would guess this is probably true to a large extent. I think that among other things, early success can cause overconfidence, which can undermine one's ability to deal with bumps in the road. But even putting that aside, it's easy to not appreciate what you are up against.

I've read a fair number of accounts from people who found that they simply weren't getting enough food if they followed the rules at Weight Watchers,

I'm not too familiar with Weight Watchers, but from what I understand, you get a certain number of "points" per day and you can use those points on pretty much any food. My criticism of this is approach is that

(1) some foods are, for lack of a better word, addictive; they screw up your brain's ability to make intelligent decisions about food. So you are better off keeping those foods to a minimum even if they are technically permitted by one's diet.

(2) A point system gives you a lot of choices about what to eat and when and the mental process of choosing depletes your mental energy.

(3) A point system is hard to use at special events. Who wants to be seen weighing and measuring food at Thanksgiving? But at the same time, any kind of "cheating" has the potential to set a bad precedent.