Predicting the development and course of eating disturbances in college students: An object relations perspective

This investigation sought to examine an unexplored avenue of the genesis of eating disorders, namely the utility of object relations dysfunction in predicting the nature and development of eating disturbances in a nonclinical population. Object relations theories of personality present a critical paradigm for the understanding of eating disorders. For individuals with bulimia and its subdiagnostic variants, psychoanalytic object relations conceptualizations have stressed the ways in which food is used to recapitulate the intense desires and fears about closeness with others operating internally in their internal object worlds and externally in their relationships with others. The investigation here followed 99 college men and women over one year and found considerable support for the prediction that object relations functioning at baseline, particularly involving issues of egocentricity and narcissistic injury, could effectively discriminate between the types of change in eating disturbance individuals underwent over the year. Support was also found for the association between object relations functioning and eating disturbance level. Contrary to expectation, however, the relationship between initial object relations functioning and followup eating disturbance level was not stronger than that between followup object relations and initial eating disturbance, thus failing to substantiate the causal role of object relations in the course eating disorders take over time. The investigation also found evidence for the interactive role of intrapsychic object relations functioning and external social pressure on attractiveness in severity of eating disturbance. The meaning of these and additional aspects of the sample\u27s eating problems are discussed with regard to their clinical and theoretical implications. The critical importance of integrating feminist and psychoanalytic perspectives to interpret the development and experience of eating disorders in contemporary society is also addressed