The Imaginative use of Religious Symbols in Subjective Experiences of Anorexia Nervosa

This paper examines the use of religious symbols and idioms in the subjective experiences of two contemporary women with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. It demonstrates how each uses in creative and imaginative ways notions of asceticism about the body and food — notions that are an integral feature of culture and religion (Douglas, 1970; Durkheim, 1915 [1965]; Foucault, 1978, 1985; James, 1902 [1982]; Weber, 1904-5 [1958])—to give expression to personal concerns with growth, separation, and loss. Both women can be viewed as meeting the diagnostic criteria of anorexia nervosa, as presented in DSM IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Yet, using their religious beliefs about the body and food in ways that are unique and imaginative, each constructs a personal meaning system in which she does not see herself as “ill” or “sick,” but rather as “moral” and “religious.” Stephen's notion of the “autonomous imagination” (Stephen, 1989) and Obeyesekere's concept of “the work of culture” — “that discontinuous movement from the ide-ational representations of deep motivations to their transformations into culturally constituted symbolic forms” (Obeyesekere, 1990, p. 289) — are useful here in exploring the complex relations between culture and individual motivation. I will return to these theoretical concerns after presenting the two women, Jane and Margaret.