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Cited by 27Eating Disorders and BehaviorsNutrition, Health and Food BehaviorPsychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments

Embodiment as a Paradigm for Understanding and Treating SE-AN: Locating the Self in Culture

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Musolino, Connie Marguerite, Warin, Megan, Gilchrist, Peter·2020·Frontiers in Psychiatry
DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00534PMC PMC7304294
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Abstract

There has been a growing call for sociologically engaged research to better understand the complex processes underpinning Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa (SE-AN). Based on a qualitative study with women in Adelaide, South Australia who were reluctant to seek help for their disordered eating practices, this paper draws on anthropological concepts of embodiment to examine how SE-AN is experienced as culturally grounded. We argue that experiences of SE-AN are culturally informed, and in turn, inform bodily perception and practice in the world. Over time, everyday rituals and routines became part of participant’s habitus, experienced as taken-for-granted practices that structured life-worlds. Here, culture and self are not separate, but intimately entangled in and through embodiment. Approaching SE-AN through a paradigm of embodiment has important implications for therapeutic models that attempt to move anorexia nervosa away from the body and separate it from the self in order to achieve recovery. Separating experiences – literally disembodying anorexia nervosa – was described by participants as more than the loss of an identity, it would dismantle their sense of being-in-the world. Understanding how SE-AN is itself a structure that structures every aspect of daily life, helps us to understand the fear of living differently, and the safety that embodied routines bring. We conclude by asking what therapeutic treatment might look like if we took embodiment as one orientation to SE-AN, and focused on quality of life and harm minimisation.

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  1. [20]Emerson RM Fretz RI Shaw LL Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. 2nd Ed Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2011).
  2. [44]Crotty P Germov J Food and class. In: Germov J Williams L, editors. A Sociology of Food and Nutrition: Introducing the Social Appetite, 2nd Edition Melbourne: Oxford University Press (2004).
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  5. [67]Wright F The World was Whole. Sydney: Giramondo Press (2018).

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Authors
Musolino, C. M., Warin, M., & Gilchrist, P.
Affiliations
  • Flinders University (AU)
  • The University of Adelaide (AU)
Corresponding author
Musolino, Connie Marguerite
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2020-06-12
Volume
11
Pages
534-534
ISSN
1664-0640 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00534
PMC
PMC7304294
OpenAlex
W3034371338
Cited by
27
References
66
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6
FWCI
1.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Flinders University
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
  • Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
Keywords
severe and enduring anorexia nervosa, embodiment, self and culture, habitus, disordered eating, women, treatment model, harm reduction, quality of life, lived experience

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