This study investigates anxiety and defense styles in eating disorders. Seventy eating
disorder (ED) patients and fifty-one female matched control subjects completed State
and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and 88-items Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ).
ED patients were more anxious in actual situations and more anxiety prone in general.
They relied on maladaptive action and Image distorting defense style. Bulimic anorexic
(BAN) patients and bulimia nervosa (BN) patients differed in defense styles from restrictive
anorexic (RAN) patients who displayed no significant difference in either state
and trait anxiety or in defense styles when compared to healthy patients. Different levels
of anxiety and ego defense maturity are present in ED patients. The almost normal ego
functioning of RAN patients could be explained by pseudomaturity, tendency to control
external and internal environment and the unconscious efforts to imitate normality to
avoid conflicts
