DISORDERED EATING BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES IN FEMALE AND MALE-PATIENTS WITH PERSONALITY-DISORDERS

The literature on the links between the eating disorders and both personality and overt personality disorders has been largely case report data or group studies of patients presenting with eating disorders. We present a brief review of this literature and note the rarity of studies reporting on the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms in samples selected for the presence of personality problems or in male samples. We report a survey of eating disorder symptoms among 130 patients referred to a therapeutic community specializing in the treatment of adults with severe personality disorder. This revealed high rates of both previously diagnosed and unrecognized eating disorder symptoms.