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181164

Women's constructions of childhood trauma and anorexia nervosa

a qualitative meta-synthesis

Jennifer Malecki Paul Rhodes Jane Ussher

pp. 231-248

Abstract

A meta-synthesis was conducted to explore women's constructions of anorexia nervosa and childhood trauma. Following a systematic review of the literature, six studies were isolated and synthesized within a material-discursive-intrapsychic framework to produce five taxonomies: "objectified and controlled bodies," "the abject body," "embodied emotions and self-harm," "medicalizing the body-as-object," and "embodied meanings and new possibilities." The women's experience of anorexia, their bodies, and shifting subjectivities was a response to the materiality of childhood abuse. The women discursively constructed anorexia nervosa as a means of negotiating bodily distress associated with trauma and renegotiating their identities to produce a cohesive, embodied self. This meta-synthesis has implications for further research that elucidates how women make meaning from the transformations of their embodied subjectivities.

Publication details

Published in:

(2018) Human Arenas 1 (3).

Pages: 231-248

DOI: 10.1007/s42087-018-0029-3

Full citation:

Malecki Jennifer, Rhodes Paul, Ussher Jane (2018) „Women's constructions of childhood trauma and anorexia nervosa: a qualitative meta-synthesis“. Human Arenas 1 (3), 231–248.