Diamond, Elizabeth (5/15) Pathways to body destruction: The contribution of caregiving deficits, dissociative processes, and body alienation to the development of disordered eating and self-injurious behaviors (Sara C. Haden, Ph.D.; Kevin B. Meehan, Ph.D.; Paul Michael Ramirez, Ph.D.)
Disordered eating and self-injurious behaviors are highly co-morbid. This high correlation is posited to be the result of a shared etiology. The current study examined a proposed pathway - poor caregiving in early life leads to dissociative processes, particularly body alienation, or poor body awareness, which then results in body destructive behaviors. This path had not been previously investigated in a sub-clinical population. The present study explored the role of body awareness in the relationship between caregiving deficits, dissociative process, and subsequent body destructive behaviors, specifically disordered eating and self-injury. A sample of 320 students (ages 18-36+) from a diverse urban university completed online self-report questionnaires to examine the associations among perceived caregiving deficits experienced in childhood and adolescence, dissociative processes, body awareness, and body destructive behaviors. Mediated model path analyses indicated that both the negative relationship between caregiving and body destruction and the positive relationship between dissociation and body destruction were fully mediated by body awareness. Discriminant function analysis revealed that body awareness differentiated between groups composed based on severity of body destruction. These results emphasize the importance of considering the impact of body awareness within the contexts of caregiving deficits and dissociation and the development of body destructive behaviors in undergraduate populations.
Disordered eating and self-injurious behaviors are highly co-morbid. This high correlation is posited to be the result of a shared etiology. The current study examined a proposed pathway - poor caregiving in early life leads to dissociative processes, particularly body alienation, or poor body awareness, which then results in body destructive behaviors. This path had not been previously investigated in a sub-clinical population. The present study explored the role of body awareness in the relationship between caregiving deficits, dissociative process, and subsequent body destructive behaviors, specifically disordered eating and self-injury. A sample of 320 students (ages 18-36+) from a diverse urban university completed online self-report questionnaires to examine the associations among perceived caregiving deficits experienced in childhood and adolescence, dissociative processes, body awareness, and body destructive behaviors. Mediated model path analyses indicated that both the negative relationship between caregiving and body destruction and the positive relationship between dissociation and body destruction were fully mediated by body awareness. Discriminant function analysis revealed that body awareness differentiated between groups composed based on severity of body destruction. These results emphasize the importance of considering the impact of body awareness within the contexts of caregiving deficits and dissociation and the development of body destructive behaviors in undergraduate populations.
