ABSTRACT
Marital relationships are more than simply the sum of the husbands’ and the wives’ individual characteristics. In order to investigate the marital context of anorexia and bulimia nervosa, it is therefore not enough to study the personalities of the spouses: one must also pay attention to the qualities and processes that characterize the relationship between the patients and their husbands. In this regard, the intimacy that is attained in their marriages deserves specific attention. As pointed out in the second chapter, intimacy represents a key topic in current social psychological theories about personal relationships, and is considered an important determinant of a person’s psychological wellbeing. As such, intimacy problems are considered an important feature of the marital relationships of psychiatric patients.
