ABSTRACT
This study clearly evinced that eating disorders frequently appear when the survivors of childhood sexual abuse dissociate and/or have no memory of the trauma. Without any recall of the abuse, eating disorders constitute a secret language the victims themselves are unable to decipher, serving as a way to express the abuse and its effects. This chapter reviews the contemporary theoretical and clinical knowledge regarding dissociative disorders and their link with childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders. Testimonies from eating disorder sufferers exemplify the way in which dissociative disorders form a link in the chain between childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders.
