[Phenomenological study on the process to onset and the structure of symptoms in eating disorders]

Psychogenic experiences occurring prior to the onset of eating disorders had previously been ignored as not corresponding to the symptoms. Recently, we have been considering these experiences as outbreak conditions, and have done phenomenological analysis of the experiences themselves with the following results. We found that patients have experienced 1.) "shame", and following that, and from the phenomenological consideration of the experience of "shame", we have observed 2.) "alienation" occurring in each patients, leading to "isolation." In "isolation", the patient is driven to despair due to existential anxiety, and as the ultimate in despair, the patient shows the attitude of 3.) "One wishing to be oneself in despair." (Kierkegaard, S.), or "haughtiness" which is the attitude of "a person who understands himself or herself to be a free design, and considers others as 'existence-others' reached through this design." (Sartre, J. P.) Here, the patient shows "consumption" as a symptom in either of the forms of surfeit (bulimia) or the consumption of one's own body (anorexia): wasting. 4.) These are defined as "conspicuous consumption" (Veblen, T. B.). 5.) Conspicuous consumption has been analyzed as a primitive form of exchange by Mauss, M., and has been mentioned repeatedly in the intellectual lineage of Bataille, G., Baudrillard, J., et al. This action is concerned with the acquisition of social status in order to save one's own face, and shows what forms the depth-psychological base stratum in the "class system" of human beings, as well as illuminating the "social functions of dignity and class distribution." We have discovered a continuous course from the psychogenic experiences occurring at the onset and previously considered trifling and therefore ignored, proceeding to the symptoms and to the structure of the symptoms. In particular, by using a phenomenological analysis of shame and symptom structure, we show a new hypothesis about the structure of symptoms which is completely different from those created according to various previous opinions. Such understanding throws new light on this disease.