Skip to main content
Log in

For an anthropology of eating disorders. A pornographic vision of the self

  • New Hypotheses
  • Published:
Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In reading the considerations of the leading contemporary sociologists, attentive observers of the metamorphosis of identity in the post-modern age, a game came to my mind: “what if I mixed up quotes from these scholars’ papers with extracts from patients’ clinical reports, especially people suffering from so-called “eating disorders”? The objective of this game is to show how difficult it is to pick out the clinical fragments from the sociologists’ descriptions of the “never ending task of assembling our Self”. The game is to try to separate psychopathology from the Late Modern physiology of identity. The great psychopathologists from the last century offered us two major meaning organizers of identity and its disorders: the Freudian and the Jaspersian. Freud’s notion of the “discontents with civilization” served to explain that widespread sense of malaise that characterizes the modern condition. As civilization has been built on our restraining our drives, civilized man ended up “trading in a part of his chances for happiness for a bit of security”. Security is guaranteed by our submitting to norms of civilized living together. Neurosis, that feeling that permeates modern human beings who neither belong to themselves nor to others, is the agonizing result. The Jaspersian concept of the Ego consciousness is mainly based on the Kantian Self, the identity pole of subjectivity, standing above the stream of changing experience. It is a necessary condition for coherent experience. Also the Jaspersian Self presupposes coherence, since its main features include identity through time, a sense of unity and one of demarcation from the external world, and a feeling of being actively involved in one’s own experiences and performances. In late modernity, identity is a task. Post-modern people have the task and necessity to be perpetually constructing themselves. Being, Self, are organized in a reflexive way. Individuals are forced to choose their own life style among a multitude of alternatives. Are the Freudian and the Kantian/Jaspersian models of the Self now still proving to be suitable for an adequate psychopathological analysis?

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bauman Z.: Intervista sull’identità. Roma/Bari, Laterza, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Giddens A.: Modernity and self-identity. London, Blackwell, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Sennet R.: The corrosion of character. The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York/London, Norton and Co., 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bauman Z.: La società dell’incertezza, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Milos G., Spindler A., Schnyder U., Mertz J., Hoek H.W., Willi J.: Incidence of severe anorexia nervosa in Switzerland: 40 years of development. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 35, 250–258, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Hoek E.W., van Hoeken D.: Review of the prevalence and incidence of eating disorders. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 34, 383–396, 2003.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Yannakoulia M., Matalas A.-L., Yiannakouris N., Papoutsakis C., Passos M., Klimis-Zacas D.: Disordered eating attitudes: an emerging health problem among Mediterranean adolescents. Eat. Weight Disord., 9, 126–133, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Freud S.: 1929. Civilization and its discontents, Standard Edition, vol. XXI, London Hogarth Press, 1961.

  9. Jaspers K.: Allgemeine Psychopathologie, Heidelberg, Springer, 1913.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Bleuler E.: Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenie. Leipzig, Deuticke, 1911.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Minkowski E.: La schizophrénie. Psychopathologie des schizoides et des schizophrènes, Paris, Payot, 1927.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Henry M.: Incarnation. Pour une philosophie de la chaire, Paris, Seuil, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Merleau-Ponty M.: The primacy of perception, Northwestern, Evanston, 1964.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Sheets-Johnstone M.: The primacy of movement. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Stanghellini G.: Disembodied spirits and deanimated bodies. The psychopathology of common sense. Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Tiger L.: The manufacture of evil: Ethics, evolution and the industrial system. New York, Harper & Row, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Paquette M.C., Rine K.: Sociocultural context of women’s body image. Soc. Sci. Med., 59, 1047–1058, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Kjaerbye-Thygesen A., Munk C., Ottesen B., Kruger Kjaer S.: Why do slim women consider themselves too heavy? A characterization of adult women considering their body weight as too heavy. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 35, 275–285, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Cena H., Toselli A., Tedeschi S.: Body uneasiness in overweight and obese Italian women seeking weightloss treatment. Eat. Weight Disord., 8, 321–325, 2003.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Foucault M.: L’hermeneutique du sujet. Cours au College de France, 1981-1982. Paris, Seuil/Gallimard, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Ricouer P.: Soi-méme comme un autre. Paris, Seuil, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Arciero G.: Saggi e dialoghi sull’identità personale. Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Gergen M., Gergen K.J.: Social construction. A reader. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi, SAGE, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to G. Stanghellini.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stanghellini, G. For an anthropology of eating disorders. A pornographic vision of the self. Eat Weight Disord 10, e21–e27 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03327536

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03327536

Key words