What anorexic and bulimic patients have to tell: the analysis of patterns of unconscious conflict expressed in stories about everyday events

Abstract

This article presents the results of a narrative study in which I analysed stories told in narrative interviews by anorectic and bulimic patients. Like patients in therapy,these women with eating disorders recounted episodes from their lives. In each such episode they played the leading role and related to others. Each woman told her story in her own special way, resorting to creative methods to make the listener adopt her view of the world. Since the patient is not just telling a story but a story with a background of conflict, the narrative form shows us the way she experiences itherself. Narrativesdo notdescribe situations; they do not represent reality but reshape it in a process of adaptation. An event is placed on a stage, along with the inner conflict, and the process of psychologically working through it. The results of this study show that while the main conflicts for each diagnosis differ, there are two conflicting patterns to each diagnosis.

Keywords:

• Narrative Analysis Psychotherapy Research Anorexia Nervosa Bulimia Nervosa