Attachment research and eating disorders: a review of the literature

The aim of this article is to review the clinical literature which examines the association between attachment patterns and eating disorders with a focus on anorexia nervosa, and to examine the varieties of methods and measures employed in attachment research. A literature review was carried out and the relevant articles are examined in terms of their contribution to this area. The literature indicates a number of important considerations when working with this group, including extreme separation anxiety and unresolved loss and trauma, and discusses the implications of these findings for treatment. The results also indicate conflicting evidence regarding associations between attachment style and eating disorder subgroup suggesting that severity of disorder matters more than eating disorder subtype. The different ways of investigating attachment patterns and experiences are explored in this paper. It is suggested that the attachment classification system runs the risk of reducing complex human experience to typologies and that qualitative research might help to address this problem.