Eating Disorders are a heterogeneous group of complex psychiatric disorders that affect physical and psychological functioning, thus compromising life itself. They are often characterized by extreme preoccupation with food, caloric intake and expenditure as well as bodily weight and shape. Additionally, individuals present several forms of recurrent compulsive behavior, such as frequent weighting, body checking, and eating rituals. In many cases food consumption is considered a” failure” and its presence in the body “harmful and even “toxic” leading the individual to adopt a wide variety of purging behaviors in order to achieve a state of mental and physical “cleanliness”
Two cases of compulsive bowel emptying, one suffering from Anorexia Nervosa and one suffering from Bulimia Nervosa, are presented. The compulsive bowel emptying behavior compromised of repeated and/or prolonged voluntary tension of the abdominal and pelvic muscles as well as insertion of the figure in the rectum to “check” if the bowel has been completely empty of its content. The purpose of this behavior was to alleviate intense anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts that the individual would get “fat” and/or “dirty/intoxicated” if the bowel was not completely vacated of the stools. In both cases the compulsive behavior facilitated the manifestation of rectum prolapse that reinforced the vicious circle of the obsessive-compulsive symptomatology.
Keywords:
Published on: Oct 27, 2015 Pages: 29-32
Full Text PDF
Full Text HTML
DOI: 10.17352/2455-5460.000005
CrossMark
Publons
Harvard Library HOLLIS
Search IT
Semantic Scholar
Get Citation
Base Search
Scilit
OAI-PMH
ResearchGate
Academic Microsoft
GrowKudos
Universite de Paris
UW Libraries
SJSU King Library
SJSU King Library
NUS Library
McGill
DET KGL BIBLiOTEK
JCU Discovery
Universidad De Lima
WorldCat
VU on WorldCat
PTZ: We're glad you're here. Please click "create a new query" if you are a new visitor to our website and need further information from us.
If you are already a member of our network and need to keep track of any developments regarding a question you have already submitted, click "take me to my Query."