The Looking Glass Self: Introductory Notes on Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is a disorder peculiar to Western society and culture. Although the sufferer is an individual, her problems are rooted in family relationships, and the syndrome utilizes the values and symbols of a stratified society where "No woman can be too rich or too thin."2 Seemingly, if we are to understand anorexia, we must view it in this social and cultural context; yet, since it is conceptualized as an "illness," the predominant approach to this disorder is that it be analyzed within the categorical system of Western biomedicine and treated within the corresponding institutional framework of one-on-one therapy. Much of the relevant literature has emerged from the biomedical tradition. A few scientists work at the biological extreme, seeming to argue that the causation of anorexia is biogenetic and physiological. Most authors do acknowledge the cultural environment and family matrix of the disorder, but, since they lack any real sense of sociocultural dynamics, they can only condemn, where they need to analyze and comprehend. In this etiology of blame, the patient's family and the surrounding cultural matrix are assigned the causal responsibility for the illness; they are not perceived as providing the clues to a remediative understanding. Facilely, one may denounce a popular culture which values slenderness in the adult female~a slenderness which is