Sexual Traumata Among Eating-Disordered, Psychiatric, and Normal Female Groups

Prevalences of childhood sexual traumata were assessed in 73 eating disordered (EDd) women, 24 normal women, and 21 women with heterogeneous psychiatric problems. Neither “incestuous abuse” (involving family members) nor “extrafamilial abuse” (involving nonrelatives) seemed unique to EDd women, both being about as highly prevalent among psychiatric controls as among any EDd group. Traumata of both types were unusually infrequent among anorexic “restricters,” suggesting that this ED subtype may have an etiology unique among the EDds. Comparisons of abused and nonabused EDds along defense-style measures suggested that self-sacrificing defense styles may be accentuated in incest victims.