An Exploration of Yoga’s Potential to Incite Feelings of Aliveness and Authenticity in Women Recovering from Anorexia Nervosa

Abstract

Women with eating disorders (EDs) and more specifically Anorexia Nervosa (AN) have been found to struggle with a lack of Interoceptive Awareness (IA) and a diminished capacity to both experience and recognize emotions (Amianto, Northoff, Daga, Fassino, & Tasca, 2016; Bruch, 1961, 1962, 1974; Granieri, 2018; Winston, 2009, 2018; Wooldridge, 2018). Much like the “synthetic doll” in the poem, “Self in 1958,” it is this barren state of IA and emotionality that can leave a woman with AN to no longer feel “real” and “alive” prompting her to question, “What is reality?” (Bruch, 1961, 1962, 1974; Granieri, 2018; Sexton, 1958, 1977; Winnicott, 1965, 1971; Winston, 2009, 2018; Wooldridge, 2018). Drawing from D.W. Winnicott’s theory of object relations, psychodynamic authors contend that this absence of IA and lack of felt, recognized and regulated emotions that women with AN struggle with is the result of impaired