A Study of the Diagnostic Drawing Series with Eating Disordered Patients

This study is based on the etiology, phenomenology, diagnosis, and treatment of eating disorders. There has become an increasing awareness and prevalence of eating disorders in our culture today. Literally, “eating disorders” implies “disordered eating.” The most common eating disorders are Anorexia Nervosa/self-starvation, Bulimia Nervosa/binge eating, and Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (NOS)/symptoms of both (Emmett, 1985). The combined sample for this study included women from all three diagnostic categories.The purpose of this study was to examine the possible existence of structural and content elements in the Diagnostic Drawing Series (DDS) significant to an Eating Disorder population and to discover if there were recognizable or identifiable differences between the profiles of Anorexic, Bulimic, and Eating Disorder NOS individuals. Previous studies of the DDS have been conducted with other mental disorders in the areas of schizophrenia, depression, dysthymia (Cohen, Hammer, & Singer, 1988), borderline personality disorder (Mills, 1989), organic mental syndrome (Couch, 1992), and Multiple Personality Disorder (Mills & Cohen, 1991; Kress, 1992; Heijtmajer & Cohen, 1993). This additional study with eating disorders provides a broader application of the use of the Diagnostic Drawing Series instrument along with increased reliability and validity.