248 Eating Disorders
and sameness in time. In line with this analysis, Gordon (2000) argued that
the “process of identity formation is particularly susceptible to disruption
by radical changes in social roles or cultural expectations” and that the
changes in cultural expectations which have affected women over the past
few decades make them “highly susceptible to epidemic symptoms of identity
confusion” (p. 96). Lawrence (1984) also focused on the importance of
identity and described the role of “identity crises” and conflicts concerned
with the development of a sense of self. She argued that “an identity crisis
occurs when we feel in a great deal of conflict about who we are both as
individual separate people and about where we stand in relation to other
people” (p. 49). She then provided examples from several women with whom
she has worked who had developed anorexia. For example, Suzanne “no
longer had the demands of a young family to cope with and had to confront
herself for the first time as an adult in her own right.” She therefore “dis-
tinguished herself only by the fact that she was exceptionally thin” (p. 48).
In parallel, Marjorie had been a success at college but when she left col-
lege “she had a real crisis about her own autonomy and felt completely
unable to lead an independent and grown up life” (p. 48). Marjorie’s eating
rituals are described as giving “her days a kind of focus which they seemed
to lack without them” (p. 48). From this analysis, the conflict over identity
can result in identity crises and feelings of being out of control, which are
expressed in a drive for thinness and the rejection of food.
Space and invisibility
The next conflict which has been hypothesized to relate to eating disorders
is one between space and invisibility. Orbach (1978, 1986) argued that “a
smaller body size for women was being proposed just at that moment in
history when women were...‘demanding more space’” (p. 75). She also
suggested that becoming smaller can actually create a sense of power.
For example, she cited the case of a nurse called Audrey, for whom “the
slimness she achieved with her anorexia made her feel that she was pre-
senting the image of someone who was just a ‘slip of a thing,’” and described
how this contrasted with an ability to disarm the “bureaucratic and
thoughtless” hospital authorities: “They never anticipated that this urchin
like figure would be tough and demanding” (p. 85). Audrey “looked impish,
even childlike, but she was strong” (p. 85). Orbach therefore argued that
the eating disorder was an expression of the conflict between taking up space
and becoming invisible, which results in a sense of control over the out-
side and inside world.