The way out of problems: recovery from anorexia nervosa seen by dynamic systems theory

The way out of problems: recovery from anorexia nervosa seen by dynamic systems theory.In order to examine the dynamics of anorectic processes we interviewed a 16-year-old girl which had recently recovered from her illness. She portrayed her experiences for a time span of 22 months from the beginning of her self-starvation until the date of the interview. After clustering all informations into variables she rated the degree of these variables for 11 important events during the time of her recovery. Synergies between cognition, emotion and behaviour during recovery are displayed. Activated feedback dynamics (positive, negative; and mixed feedback-loops) give rise of the interpretation of recovery from anorexia nervosa as a dynamic, self-organizing system. Nonlinear dynamics are salient in psychological change even if we are adopting a qualitative view on the phenomena.