Body attitude and somatoform dissociation in eating disorders

Abstract

In patients with eating disorders, the distorted perception and negative affective evaluation of one's own body may be but one aspect of a more general disturbance in processing of bodily stimuli. Other manifestations of this hypothetic disturbance may be the insensitivity to fatigue, hunger and physical pain.

The mechanism of such abnormality may be associated with the psychopathological process of dissociation. In the current study, the relationship between body image disturbance and somatoform dissociation is explored by two new self-report measures (the Body Attitude Test and the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire), which have been translated to the Czech language.