Roberts, Sarah and Parry, Sarah (2024) Experiences of Stigma and the ‘Eating Disorder Voice’ within People with Eating Disorders. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
![[thumbnail of 2024SarahRobertsDClinPsy]](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/text.png)
Abstract
The first paper is a systematic literature review, exploring the influence of stigma on help seeking for an eating disorder. It yielded 14 qualitative studies surrounding help-seeking experiences within people with eating disorders, and the stigma they faced. A meta-ethnography was used to synthesise the findings. Stigma was found to pose a significant barrier to help-seeking, as it contributed to the minimisation of eating disorders, in particular the dismissal of psychological symptoms. This increased feelings of invalidation, and decreased motivation to seek help. The second paper is a research project exploring inner-speech and voice-hearing experiences within the context of an eating disorder, namely the ‘eating disorder voice’ (EDV). The stories of ten young women with lived experience of the EDV were elicited using an experience based co-design informed method. Data was analysed using narrative analysis. Findings suggested that the EDV can be experienced as a prominent feature of an eating disorder, eliciting complete control over an individual and posing a barrier to recovery. However, psychological elements such as the EDV were described to be dismissed by eating disorder services, resulting in continuation of the disorder. The third paper is a critical appraisal, which reflects on the process of completing the above papers, and a review on their strengths, limitations, and areas for future research. Overlapping and complimentary findings between the two papers are also discussed, alongside their clinical implications.