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The Psychological Battle for Control: A Qualitative Study of Health‐care Professionals' Understandings of the Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa
Author(s) -
JARMAN MARIA,
SMITH JONATHAN A.,
WALSH SUE
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1298(199704)7:2<137::aid-casp404>3.0.co;2-g
Subject(s) - interpretative phenomenological analysis , nomothetic and idiographic , psychology , qualitative research , anorexia nervosa , eating disorders , psychotherapist , phenomenology (philosophy) , multidisciplinary approach , mental health , social psychology , clinical psychology , sociology , epistemology , social science , philosophy
Abstract This paper reports a qualitative, idiographic study, which intensively examines a multidisciplinary team of clinicians' subjective understandings and experiences of treating young people with anorexia nervosa. The study employs semi‐structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis, these methods enabling individual clinicians' perspectives to be explored in depth and retained within the analysis. The analysis focuses on the salient higher‐order theme of control which emerges as central to understanding the treatment of the anorexic child. Three control‐related themes are used to illustrate the multiplicity of meanings and experiences which are relevant to this team of health‐care professionals. It is suggested that this paper makes three important contributions to the current eating disorder literature: illuminating the multi‐faceted nature of the construct control; highlighting the importance of therapists' subjective understandings and experiences; and illustrating the value of qualitative methods for clinically relevant research. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.