The body as a simulacrum of identity: the subjective experience in the eating disorders

This study aims at better understanding the subjective experience, the so-called Erlebnis, in individuals diagnosed with Eating Disorders (ED). We shall highlight the particular way in which people with such disorders perceive their own bodies and specifically how they perceive their bodies in the presence of other people. To this end we shall analyze the subjective experience by means of two concepts as described by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: "body-self" and "body-forothers". Our hypothesis is that some people suffering from eating disorders, especially those with a diagnosis of Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS), experience their body mainly as body-for-others. Rather than a diagnostic category, EDNOS could be conceived as an anthropological configuration vulnerable to ED. Eating disorders appear as an "identity disorder" characterized by a suspension of the experiential polarity between self and other-than-self.