ABSTRACT
Eating disorders are ironically cruel problems, in which one of the most pleasurable, eminently life-sustaining functions has gone awry. They are terrible problems in their consequences. Although anorexia nervosa (AN) has a much lower incidence in the population in comparison with other psychiatric diseases such as depression and schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Murphy et al., 2000), it is most likely to prove fatal (Vitiello & Lederhendler, 2000). These problems are recalcitrant in terms of treatment, tending to become chronic and resistant. The cause of these disorders is not entirely known, but it is the premise of this book that they are maintained by the patient’s social context. A brief look at their occurrence in history supports this premise.
