Adjustment Disorder and Family-dynamics

―From the Case-study of Anorexia Nervosa―

Abstract

　Through the relations with their family members, children accumulate knowledge, learn the roles of both sexes, and acquire the skills and techniques necessary for social life. At the same time, they learn how to adjust personal relations while playing and mixing with other children. In this paper, I cited the case of a child who was reared an apparently good and obedient child in those family relations which prevent her from voicing her complaints or showing her feelings. She unconsciously repressed dissatisfaction, anger and spite stemming from the need of maternal love. When she came to keep company with a boyfriend in her young-adult period, she did not know how to assert herself with her parents and her boyfriend. She has finally regressed to infant behaviors and suffered from anorexia nervosa because of the long stress of repression. In treatment, I carried out family therapy and personal counseling, aiming at (1) her reacquirement of the developmental tasks which she failed to do, (2) the modification of the roles among her father, her mother and her, and (3) variegation of her social skills. Because it is observed during the treatment that the process of variation of the family role system is deeply related to the cure process, I tried to analyze the case and make clear the relationship between the two processes.