This is a self that we construct because we do not believe that who we really are is okay, or acceptable, to the outside world. We keep hidden (sometimes even from ourselves) important pieces of ourselves from many people, even those who used to be very close to us.
We call it the Harmonic Self because it is a self that is harmonized, or falsely attuned, to what we think the outside world wants. We hope to regain, at least for awhile, our attunement with others.
However, the attunement is not real. No one knows we are struggling and no one knows what we are really thinking and feeling or what we need.
The Void
Our Real Authentic Self (thought, feelings, and needs) is left without a true representation or an experience of attunement. A VOID is created. It is the creation of this void that allows behaviors that initially served to manage weight or size to develop into overwhelming, misdirected appetites, eating struggles, and disorder.
To fill the VOID (the space and needs) not filled by the False Harmonic Self, the eating disordered behaviors become more important and functional in the regulation of our thoughts, feelings, and needs. In a disordered manner, the Real Self becomes disproportionately attuned to the experience of the symptoms (see Figure Two).
The result is a self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing disorder. In the most chronic and clinical cases, disordered self-attunement becomes the central organizing feature of a person’s life.
It may be, in part, the self-attunement combined with the false-attunement with the outside world that contributes to the treatment resistance for which eating disorder symptoms are known.
