The Relationship of Personality to Eating Disorders

This paper highlights a variety of personality disorders in individuals with eating disorder and also emphasizes the importance of identifying clinically meaningful eating disorders subtypes based on concurrent personality disorder. The relationship between personality disorders and eating disorders is an important issue as this association has implications for assessment and treatment. Different hypotheses concerning the relationship between personality disorders and eating disorders will be reviewed. The prevalence rates of concomitant personality disorder diagnoses in eating disorder patients is highlighted to illustrate some of the pertinent conceptual issues concerning the meaning of the co-occurrence of separately defined diagnostic entities. The literature review reveals a robust finding that patients with personality pathology have a poorer response to treatment of Axis I disorders than those without such pathology. It is also argued that therapeutic relationship deserves more attention in the assessment and treatment of eating disorder patients with a co morbid personality disorder.