The relationship among critical inner voices, low self-esteem, and self-criticism in eating disorders

Hilde Bruch (1978) was one of the first to describe the phenomenon of anorectic patients experiencing a critical inner voice. Although several qualitative studies regarding eating disorder patients report this experience, few quantitative studies have been conducted in which hearing voices was examined in eating disorder patients. This motivated us to investigate whether eating disorder patients (N = 74) experience critical inner voices significantly more often than a healthy control group (N = 58). Is voice hearing related to the severity of the eating disorder and to low self-esteem and high self-criticism? These questions will be addressed in this article.