ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 introduces a new model of the mind in eating disorders. It proposes a different way of thinking about eating disorders, seeing them in terms of mental function (how the ability of eating disorder sufferers to process their emotions may be fragile) rather than just the presence or absence of symptoms. As described in earlier chapters, we understand that emotions are either processed for meaning, by engaging symbolic and reality functions, or are denied access to these functions and are processed somatically by the body with no access to symbolic language (a discontinuous model of neural emotional processing).
