Between Difference and Belonging: Configuring Self and Others in Inpatient Treatment for Eating Disorders
Open accessAbstract
Dedicated inpatient care for eating disorders has profound impact on patients' embodied practices and lived realities. Analyses of inpatients' accounts have shown that participants endorse complex and conflicting attitudes toward their experiences in eating disorders wards, yet the apparent ambivalence that characterizes inpatient experiences has not been subject to critical examination. This paper examines the narrated experiences of 13 participants (12 women and one man; age 18-38 years at first interview) with past or present anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or eating disorder not otherwise specified, who had been hospitalized in an inpatient eating disorders ward for adults in central Israel. The interviews, which took place in 2005-2006, and again in 2011, were part of a larger longitudinal study exploring the subjective experiences of eating disorders and recovery among Israeli adults. Employing qualitative analysis, this study finds that the participants' accounts were concerned with dynamics of difference and belonging, as they played out in various aspects of inpatient care, including diagnosis, treatment, relationships with fellow patients and staff, and everyday life in hospital. Notably, participants simultaneously defined themselves as connected to, but also distinct from, the eating disordered others who formed their reference group at the ward. Through negotiating a protectively ambivalent positioning, participants recognized their eating disordered identities and connected with others on the ward, while also asserting their non-disordered individuality and distancing themselves from the potential dangers posed by 'excessive' belonging. The paper suggests that this ambivalent positioning can usefully be understood through the anthropological concept of liminality: being both a part of and apart from one's community.
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Psychiatric diagnoses may be experienced as attributing authoritative legitimacy to suffering, particularly for individuals who have been invalidated and silenced.
“Psychiatric diagnoses may be experienced as attributing authoritative legitimacy to suffering, particularly for individuals who have been invalidated and silenced [5, 6].”
From A lived experience response to the proposed diagnosis of terminal anorexia nervosa: learning from iatrogenic harm, ambivalence and enduring hope (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
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- Authors
- Eli, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Eli, Karin
- ORCID
- Eli, Karin
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2014-09-11
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e105452
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4161313
- OpenAlex
- W2053116441
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 2.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Oxford
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Keywords
- eating disorders, inpatient care, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, eating disorder not otherwise specified, liminality, patient experience, hospital wards, peer relationships, diagnosis and treatment, recovery
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Anorexia Nervosa, Female, Hospitalization, Humans, Inpatients, Israel, Male, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Bulimia Nervosa
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