Defense styles and parental bonding in eating-disordered women

Abstract

Fifty-eight women with anorexia or bulimia nervosa were compared with 24 normal women on measures of defense style and parental bonding. Results indicated that all eating-disorder subtypes exhibit more primitive defenses and fewer mature ones than controls. Eating-disorder patients uniformly recalled less paternal empathy than controls. Thus, difficulties involving object representations of fathers may be a theme common to eating disorders. No major differences were identified among eating-disorder subtypes, suggesting that these disorders share substantial psychodynamic features. Patterns of parental bonding were associated with defense styles in a manner consistent with theories that link defense style development to early object relationships.Recent findings suggest a substantial "interface" between eating and personality disorders. Many studies have found eating-disorder (ED) patients who binge and purge (whether they be anorexic or normal in weight) to exhibit "borderline" personality traits: among them mood lability, self-destructiveness, and other impulse-dysregulation problems. Conversely, anorexic patients who solely restrict food intake (without binging) tend to be overcontrolled or "ob-

Weight changes and eating attitudes of Japanese adolescents under acculturative stresses: A prospective study

“…In a nonreferred cohort of 1,193 adolescents in Norway (Lavik, Clausen, & Pedersen, 1991), total EAT score was significantly correlated with perceived overprotection by the mother. However, these results contrast with Palmer, Oppenheimer, and Marshall (1988) who found no consistent pattern of parental practices in anorexic and bulimic patients or with Steiger, van der Feen, Goldstein, and Leichner (1989) who found absence of paternal care in such patients. Such a discrepancy may be attributable to the qualitative difference between a patient population and a nonclinical one, pointing to the discontinuity between them; or, it may represent a Berkson bias on the part of the studies with patient populations that might have arrived at false conclusions because the combination of the disease and the risk factors were underrepresented in those presenting to the hospitals and seeking treatment.…”

Defense style in women with eating disorders

“…Other studies have shown evidence of both specificity ) and lack of specificity ) of the DSQ with clinical diagnoses. Several studies have looked at the DSQ in clinical samples of women with eating disorders (Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, 1990;Steiger, Van der Feen, Goldstein, & Leichner, 1989;Steiner, 1990). These studies demonstrate substantially greater defensive pathology in eating disorder groups in comparison to controls without consistent results regarding differences among the various eating disorders.…”

“…These studies demonstrate substantially greater defensive pathology in eating disorder groups in comparison to controls without consistent results regarding differences among the various eating disorders. However, two of these reports appeared to have studied substantially the same individuals (Steiger et al, 1989(Steiger et al, , 1990. Additional limitations of these studies include the use of an early version of the DSQ (Bond et al, 1983) and its problematic scoring algorithm.…”

“…We reasoned that if defense style is important in the pathogenesis of the different subtypes of eating disorders, then there should be evidence of specificity of defense style across groups. We did not include comparison groups (i.e., normal controls or those with other psychiatric disorders) as other studies have shown that eating disorder subjects (Steiger et al, 1989;Steiner, 1990) differ from control subjects and because such comparisons would not be informative to our hypotheses.…”

Self-Silencing as a Mediator and Moderator of Adult Attachment and Disordered Eating Attitudes

“…In the last two decades, there has been a considerable amount of empirical research involving the use of parent-child relationship dynamics or attachment theory as conceptual frameworks for understanding the etiology of disordered eating. In terms of parent-child relationships, women with disordered eating reported their fathers as emotionally unavailable and highly critical of them (Cole-Detke & Kobak, 1996), the lack of parental care or empathy (Steiger, Van der Feen, Goldstein, & Leichner, 1989), or high parental hostility (Becker, Bell, & Billington, 1987). Also, M. E. Kenny and Hart (1992) reported that college students with secure parental attachment reported lower levels of weight and dieting preoccupation, bulimic behavior, and feelings of inadequacy compared to women with eating disorders.…”