Abstract
Anorexia nervosa is widely characterised as a disorder of the self, in which sufferers come to identify with their illness. Yet what such identification amounts to remains poorly understood. I argue that there are two distinct forms of self-identity involved, individual identity and group identity. These emerge at different time points, stem from different factors, and bear different clinical consequences. By unpacking this distinction, I provide a pluralistic and psychologically plausible account of self-identity in anorexia—one that illuminates the disorder’s tenacity and points to new ways of understanding it.