Family Patterns Associated With Anorexia Nervosa*

Abstract

A family systems perspective was used to explore familial transactional patterns related to anorexia nervosa. Father, mother and daughter, interpersonal assessments of parental initiative and daughter responsive behaviors as reported on Benjamin's (1974) Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB), were combined to serve as data for a hierarchical cluster analysis. Out of the 22 families with an anorexic child and the 22 matched control families, 7 family groups with unique family dynamics differentiating one from another emerged out of the clustering procedure. Prototypic family profiles were established and examined using Benjamin's (1984) program Figure (FIG) to explicate central features of the family transactional relationships. With no single family pattern characterizing the families of the anorexic daughters, the study challenges earlier family theories that postulated a single anorexogenic family system, and supports a broader, more complex view of anorexics and their families.

Perceived family cohesion, adaptability and communication in eating disorders

“…The survey of the ways the patients and mothers rated their families by type supports the notion of possible different family patterns in families with anorectic young girls. It has already been suggested that families of anorectic patients are a heterogeneous group (Garfinkel et al, 1983;Grigg & Friesen, 1989;Dare et al, 1995). Our study supports this idea, as well as the distinction between the restrictive and bulimic type of anorexia nervosa.…”

Family interactions in bulimia nervosa I: Study design, comparisons to established population norms, and changes over the course of an intensive day hospital treatment program

“…Another more compelling possibility is that the range of family dysfunction present in such families may be quite wide, with some families functioning at very high and a much smaller group at very low levels. This would be supported by some empirical work (Kog & Vandereycken, 1989;Humphrey, 1989;Grigg et al, 1989). It may also be that some theoretical models may have been based on observations of biased samples, biased perhaps by the well-known expertise of the theorists in dysfunctional families.…”

“…The most methodologically sophisticated studies (Humphrey, 1989;Grigg et al, 1989;Kog & Vandereycken, 1989) have supported a finding of considerable variation in reported family functioning, with some families functioning at very high levels. Most studies have reported that patients rate their own families as very disturbed.…”

“…Six studies have examined the report of more than one family member (Strober, 1981;Garfinkel et al, 1983;Humphrey, 1986aHumphrey, , 1986bHumphrey, , 1989Stern et al, 1989;Grigg, Friesen, & Sheppy, 1989). Results from these studies confirm that patients tend to report significant levels of family distress, but are less clear about the reports of parents, with some studies reporting high levels of family dysfunction from the perspective of parents (Strober, 1981;Garfinkel et al, 1983;Humphrey, 1986aHumphrey, , 1986b, usually with the mothers Families in Bulimia Nervosa 107 of patients reporting more distress.…”

Family therapy and psychopathology: developments in research and approaches to treatment

“…Studies by Grigg and Friesen (1989) and by Marcus and Wiener (1989), which focused entirely on eating disorders, offer additional support to the contentions by Anderson (1988, 1989). Although they found that families with an anorexic child did differ from control families on a number of dimensions, this could by no means be interpreted as evidence for the existence of an anorexogenic family structure.…”