Equilibrated paradox: A phenomenological study of subject-object consciousness in anorexia nervosa

This paper offers a phenomenological reinterpretation of the contradictory structure of bodily self-consciousness in anorexia nervosa (AN). Existing phenomenological accounts, particularly Legrand’s, examine how bodily objectivity and bodily subjectivity become differently organized in AN, often characterizing this relation in terms of “over-objectification” and “under-subjectification.” While this approach draws attention to experiences of bodily alienation, it leaves further questions about the relation between bodily regulation, agency, and the persistence of anorexic experience. This paper proposes the equilibrated paradox model to clarify how bodily objectification can serve as a means of enacting subjectivity while simultaneously undermining it. The model focuses on the mutually implicating relation between these processes, rather than treating either the presence of bodily objectification or the persistence of bodily subjectivity as sufficient, in itself, to characterize the experience as problematic. It further examines how this relation may be reconfigured across the course of illness and recovery. The paper thus offers a phenomenological account of the relation between bodily regulation, agency, and embodied self-experience in AN.