ABSTRACT
Learning the lesson of EDNOS means learning that there exists unity within diversity. Our current diagnostic understanding, or perhaps more accurately lack of understanding, in relation to eating disorders demonstrates that these patients present with a wide range of both primary and secondary symptoms. EDNOS patients are characterized by psychopathology similar to, but not quite the same as, the familiar syndromes of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa (see Appendix for diagnostic criteria). At the same time, there is something elusively “typical” about these “atypical” patients that allows us to apply the label of eating disorders in the first place. From a diagnostic perspective EDNOS raises the question of what indeed is typical about eating disorders. From a psychoanalytic perspective EDNOS raises the question of what a common core of symptoms may imply in terms of underlying personality structure. Put succinctly, we could ask whether a characteristic core of eating disorder symptoms also implies an underlying core unity of unconscious meaning among eating disorder patients. This chapter will explore these issues in relation to both the theoretical and empirical literature, and briefly discuss implications for the treatment of eating disorders.
