Bruch (1973) argued that a main predisposing factor in the development of anorexia nervosa is a particular early mother-daughter relationship, in which there is a lack of
appropriate responses from the mother to her daughter’s needs. The mother tends to act on her own need to feel in control, so the needs of the infant remain poorly
differentiated and she tries to comply with what she thinks are her mother’s needs. At adolescence her biological and psychological needs remain blurred and she is
unable to cope with the demands of individuation and separation. Bruch’s theory explains the anorexic’s lack of sense o f separateness and pervasive sense of ineffectiveness, and accounts for the development of a deficit in the processing of bodily cues which may underlie the body-image disturbance (Eisler, 1995). However, her theories are difficult to empirically evaluate. Indirect evidence comes from retrospective studies of childhood care, some of which are reviewed in section
1.4.2.
Masterson (1977) described the early mothering o f anorexics as rewarding of dependency and threatening emotional abandonment when there are signs of the
child moving towards separation or independence. This causes the child to have an overwhelming fear of abandonment and becomes confused in attempts to separate
and individuate at adoleseence. The mechanism used to cope with the fear and confusion are to avoid physical maturity (remaining thin) as analogous to delaying or
The hypothesised over-intrusiveness and protectiveness of the mother described by
Bruch (1973) and Masterson (1977), would not allow the infant to develop adaptive ways of coping with distress and anxiety associated with the threat of separation.
Attachment theory would predict that such children would develop insecure attachment strategies, which would be shown when the attachment system is
threatened. Armstrong and Roth, (1989) discussed the anorexic’s ‘morbid pursuit of
thinness’ in the context of attachment theory, and described the anorexic as lacking or misperceiving their own resources, and therefore tending to excessively depend on
others in order to feel safe and secure. This sense of basic inadequacy and helplessness, with insecure neediness is indicative of anxious attachment. In the context of the importance based on thinness in our culture (Hill, 1993), Armstrong and Roth suggested that such individuals may come to rely on weight loss and dieting as a means of establishing and controlling the availability of attachment figures.
Guidano (1987) has related attachment problems described in eating disordered adolescents to his perceptions o f their parents as “extremely attentive to formal
aspects of life - especially social appearances” (p. 156). There is a tendency to conceal any personal difficulty, and they come across as parents entirely dedicated to the well being of their child. But Guidano believes that their parenting behaviour is
more directed towards obtaining for themselves a confirmation of that image than at
fulfilling their child’s concrete need for emotional support. Guidano attributes part of the difficulties in separation to what Minuchin et al (1978) described as ‘enmeshed
functioning in individually different ways is radically handicapped” (p.30). Under these conditions children develop an unreliability about their ability to recognise and properly decode their inner states. It is only within an ongoing relationship with an
attachment figure that they can infer what is “permissible” to feel and think
(Guidano, 1987).
An adolescent, with the emergence o f abstract thought, begins to see her parents in a different way, less idealised. This change of image is not usually distressing for
adolescents because it supports their emerging sense of individuality and begins cognitive-emotional separation from the family. However, Guidano (1987) explains that girls prone to eating disorders, in order to achieve a stable sense of self, keep their perceptions of a parent as idealised, because reappraisal of that model would be experienced as a disappointment, as it questions one’s established sense of self. This ongoing idealisation could hinder the adolescent separation process.
O’Kearney (1996) explains that it would be difficult to predict which type of
insecure attachment - insecure resistant or insecure avoidant - is involved in anorexia. It is assumed that avoidant strategies develop when a child’s model of carers lead them to assess the probability of gaining access to carers as low. However, avoidance of the attachment system is never entirely successful because of
our need to gain access to the attachment figure for comfort when coping with
distress and anxiety (Main & Solomon, 1990). So efforts to deactivate the attachment system must continually redirect attention from attachment to other goals that may
focus on appearance may serve as a diversionary function by redirecting attention from attachment to more attainable goals. It could be that the anorexic’s focus on her
body allows her to dismiss the importance of family and peer relationships and avoid
the anxiety involved in separating from family and making closer peer attachments, or to avoid these attachment changes. Also, an externally orientated attention set may
increase the individual’s susceptibility to sociocultural pressures of thinness which
are thought to play an important role in the development of eating disorders (Gamer & Garfinkel, 1980). Alternatively, the emphasis on body shape/weight could be a
type of hypervigilance to others’ perceptions of her and to the possibility of criticism, rejection and abandonment (Striegel-Moore, Silberstien & Rodin, 1993).
O’Kearney (1996) seems to agree that in either case, the anorexia may function to maintain the predictability in her closeness to her parents.
Armstrong and Roth (1989) have attempted to understand bingeing in terms of attachment theory. They consider that bulimic families have been characterised as disorganised and conflictual (Root, Fallon & Friedich, 1986), and parents who are preoccupied with social, financial and interpersonal difficulties may not be able to consistently perceive and meet their children’s needs for security. The child may
learn that from these experiences that others will be unavailable or insensitive when in need of support (i.e. develop an avoidant attachment strategy). She may use
bingeing as a method of self-soothing when threatened.
O’Kearney (1996) has also predicted insecure attachments with bulimia, with
associated with separation. He has linked the lack of control associated with binge eating to the uncontrollable distress connected with separation for the insecure-
resistant type of attachment. However, he concludes “more precise predictions about the type of insecure attachments expected for bulimia are not possible from existing
theoretical models” (O'Kearney, 1996).
Bulimic symptoms have been associated with high levels of dissociative experiences
(Everill & Waller, 1995), and there have been hypothesised links between dissociation and disorganised (unresolved) attachment status (Liotti, 1995). In addition to an association with insecure attachment (O’Keamey, 1996) bulimics might be more likely to have a disorganised attachment style in childhood, particularly if abuse occurred (and the attachment figure was perceived as frightening). According to Liotti (1995), they would be more vulnerable to using dissociation as a defense, so that difficult or traumatic memories would not be easily processed and lead to the individual remaining unresolved to the trauma or losses they experience. By continuing to use dissociation as a way of cutting off from these unresolved painful memories, the individual is prevented from processing the associated cognitions and affect. The bulimic symptoms remain, as either a
purposeful way of cutting off from emotional pain - i.e. become totally absorbed in eating in a binge (as Lacey, (1986) conceptualised). Or the dissociation is not in their control, and once in a dissociated state it is easier to become absorbed in a binge and,
as Heatherton & Baumeister (1991) seem to suggest, once the cognitive state is