“Ghosts at the banquet” - Scholarly Commons Home

17.5%. However, this criterion is left to the clinician’s judgment, due to the
fact that a person can meet the criteria for Anorexia Nervosa without having a
low weight (this situation is described as sub-clinical). Other than low weight,
the other diagnosable criteria are that the person has an intense fear of gaining
weight or becoming fat, a disturbance in the way they experience their body
shape or weight which influences their self evaluation and /or denial of the
seriousness of current low weight. The absence of menstrual cycles can also
indicate the diagnosis and, for some women, this can occur before reaching a
low weight as a result of physical and psychological factors (Garner and
Finkel, 1997, p. 27).
According to Chassler (1994), the interpersonal theory of Bruch (1973, 1978)
viewed the anorexic person as having major ego deficiencies resulting from
disturbed mother-child interactions, isolating three areas of disordered
psychological functioning.
1. A disturbance in body image characterized by delusional thinking
so profound as to lead to a total denial of their emaciated
appearance.
2. A disturbance in the ability to perceive and identify body stimuli.
3. A paralysing sense of ineffectiveness pervades their lives… eating
is not an action performed by themselves but rather something
which happens to them - an act over which they have no control
(p.251-253).
The unknown etiology of anorexia and the lack of understanding of the
pathogenesis have hindered the development of effective interventions
(Wagner et al., 2007). More recently, Guisinger (2008) commended
Wonderlich, Joiner, Keel, Williamson, & Crosby (2007) for an article in which
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