Sexual Abuse and Eating Disorders Essay -- Health Violence Papers

Sexual Abuse and Eating Dis narratesThe possible relationship between internal abuse and the development of an eating disorder has gained attention over the survive few years. Researchers have attempted to clarify this potential link exploitation a variety of population samples and research methodologies. As leave be shown, the results of these investigations are rather diverse and sometimes inconclusive. In the following appraise of the literature, the complex relationship between sexual abuse and eating disorders will be polld while also discussing the methodological limitations of the various designs.Anorexic SamplesSteiger and Zanko (1990) compared pass judgment of incestuous abuses (sexual contacts with family members) and extrafamilial abuses (sexual traumata involving other perpetrators) among eating cark women who met DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) criteria, women with psychiatric disturbances, and customary women. The authors interest in the psyc hological effects of abuse led them to examine psychological defenses which are believed to filter perceptions and affects. Defenses were of interest to the authors for two reasons (1) incest victims often stamping ground to maladaptive defenses with a self-victimizing quality, in which anger at others is expressed by dint of self-sabotaging acts and (2) the authors previous work suggests that eating disordered women use primitive defenses when compared to shape and psychiatrically disturbed women. This particular study was designed to determine the degree to which traumata homogeneous sexual abuse might have effects upon defense-style development.In order to compare rates across eating disorder subtypes, the eating disordered women were divided into the following groups (1) ... ...Test The BULIT-R. Psychological Assessment A journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 3, 119-124.Walters, C., Smolak, L., & Sullins, E. (1987). Parent-child interactions and severity of child s exual abuse. Paper presented to the annual throng of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore.Welch, S.L., & Fairburn, C.G. (1994). Sexual Abuse and bulimia Nervosa Threeintegrated case control comparisons. American diary of Psychiatry, 151, 402-407.Wonderlich, S., Donaldson, M.A., Carson, D.K., Staton, D., Gertz, L., Leach, L.R., & Johnson, M. (1996). Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 11, 195-207.Zlotnick, C., Hohlstein, L.A., Shea, M.T., Pearlstein, T., Recupero, P., & Bidadi, K. 1996). The Relationship Between Sexual Abuse and Eating Pathology. world-wide Journal of Eating Disorders, 20, 129-134.