ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes an alternative way of understanding recovery from Anorexia Nervosa (AN) in term of women's own experiences of their body, self, and affective experience. In addition to affective and embodied experience, intrapersonal dynamics have been cited as shifting with recovery from AN. From past-, present-, and future-oriented poetic discourse, reflections on three points of the AN recovery process was articulated: at the worst of the eating disorder, in recovery, and toward body-self unity. Through the present-oriented poetic discourse, it becomes clear that these women were at varying points along the continuum of recovery from AN. Recovery of the body by the self is sometimes followed by unification of the self with the body. At the worst of the eating disorder, women's embodied experience was characterized by a stark division between the object-body and the self. Focusing research efforts on investigating factors influencing positive embodied affective experience may further elucidate the AN recovery process.
