Making Meaning(s) of a Diagnosis: Diagnostic Framing, Interpretive Identity Work, and Anorexia Identities

Psychiatric diagnoses can significantly inform identity and self-understanding but hold different meanings to different people. This research takes a symbolic interactionist approach and addresses these matters in relation to anorexia nervosa. Drawing on data collected through in-depth interviews with 13 participants diagnosed with anorexia, I examine the extent to which participants dis/identify with the diagnosis and how it informs their self-understanding. Findings suggest that participants first came to identify with anorexia via self-labelling or being labelled by others, and that an (increasing) identification with anorexia was learned through diagnostic framing in treatment and ongoing identity work. However, participants reflexively engaged with diagnostic definitions and explanations of their struggles resulting in anorexia identities that were differentially ‘clinically’ and ‘critically’ informed and were sometimes ambivalent. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the research findings for therapeutic approaches to anorexia that seek to address identity.