PERSONALITY AND MENTAL STATE (PSE) WITHIN ANOREXIA-NERVOSA

Twenty-one patients with anorexia nervosa were assessed with measures of current mental state (P.S.E.) and personality (E.P.I. and H.D.H.Q.). They were divided in terms of weight control mechanisms into pure abstainers (N = 12) and habitual vomiters (N = 9). There were no substantial personality or symptomatic differences between these two populations. Taken together the anorectics did not differ from published series of neurotics or depressives in terms of the E.P.I. and H.D.H.Q. As a group the anorectics' predominant symptom was depression, but the overall mental state was quite distinct from that of published series of depressives. Obsessional symptoms were also prominent. © 1979.