HISTORIES OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND COMPLEX POSTTRAUMATIC SEQUELAE IN WOMEN WITH EATING DISORDERS

Authors
Citation
M. Rorty et J. Yager, HISTORIES OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND COMPLEX POSTTRAUMATIC SEQUELAE IN WOMEN WITH EATING DISORDERS, The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 19(4), 1996, pp. 773
Citations number
145
Categorie Soggetti
Psychiatry
ISSN journal
0193953X
Volume
19
Issue
4
Year of publication
1996
Database
ISI
SICI code
0193-953X(1996)19:4<773:HOCTAC>2.0.ZU;2-4
Abstract
The tenacity of eating disorders found among women abused and neglecte d in childhood becomes comprehensible when they are understood as desp erate attempts to regulate overwhelming affective states, and to const ruct a coherent sense of self and system of meaning when internal stru ctures are lacking. In this article we use conceptualizations of compl ex posttraumatic stress disorder to make sense of the troubling and so metimes paradoxic facets of disturbed eating behaviors in the traumati zed patients: their symbolic and metaphoric meanings; their intensity, repetitiveness, and tenacity; their dissociative qualities; their use as agents of self-soothing as well as self-harm; their resistance to traditional treatments; and the particular nature of accompanying symp toms and syndromes, including self-mutilation, borderline pathology, s uicidality, depression, substance abuse, and sexual acting out or avoi dance. Treatment of the traumatized eating disorder patient is multifa ceted, complicated, and often demanding. It may involve individual tre atment, group therapy, family interventions, and/or pharmacotherapy. A s survivors connect past traumas with current symptoms and reenactment phenomena within a safe interpersonal context, they gain an increased capacity to relinquish their symptoms of eating disorder and to modul ate disruptive internal states in a manner that soothes rather than in tensifies past wounds.