Schlueter, David W. (David Walter), 1954-Weeks, Sarah Ingram.2011-12-192017-04-072011-12-192017-04-072011-122011-12-19http://hdl.handle.net/2104/8289As the primary text of the psychiatric establishment, the DSM-IV has been criticized for contributing to the stigmatization and marginalization of individuals with mental illness. The rapid rise of the internet as a communication tool has enabled previously marginalized and isolated sociocultural subgroups to create virtual communities where they can share their unique understandings and experiences of living with a mental illness. Individuals with eating disorders constitute one such subgroup who have created virtual spaces via pro-anorexia communities. Free of the discursive constraint present in their day to day lives, these dialogical spaces are at the same time anonymous and highly intimate; thus, the accounts contained within and across these communities are a beneficial source from which to investigate the meaning of anorexia from the patients’ perspective. Through a feminist, post-structuralist discourse analysis of (anorexic) narrative and the theory of the dialogical self, I suggest a model of collective voices of (anorexic) identity.en-USBaylor University theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. Contact librarywebmaster@baylor.edu for inquiries about permission.Dialogical self.Psychiatric labelling.Discourse analysis.ThesisWorldwide access