Structural Relationships of the Personality Organization, Object Relations and Defense Mechanisms with Pathological Eating Disorder

The research method was descriptive and correlational. The statistical population of the study consisted of all undergraduate students of Payame Noor University and Islamic Azad University in Qom in the second half of the school year they were in 2017-18. For this purpose, 888 of these students were selected using multi-stage cluster random sampling. In order to collect data, the Subject Relations Questionnaire (1995), The Kernberg‎ Personality Inventory Questionnaire (IPO), the Iranian Form of Defense Styles (Andrews et al. , 1989) and Garner et al. (1982) Eating Attitudes Questionnaire (1982) were used to analyze the data. A confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis was used. The results showed directly that 16. 81% of the dispersion of the scores of pathological eating patterns was explained ‎through the Primary object relation and 6 % through the defense mechanisms. Also, in this model, 24. 01% of dispersion of personality ‎organization were explained through the defense mechanisms. In addition, the results of this study, estimating the structural model in which object relations and personality organization as a variable of defense and defense mechanisms were introduced into the middle eagle, showed that this model explains 41. 07% of pathological eating patterns. The pathological eating patterns both directly and indirectly could be interpreted by defense mechanisms via primary object relations and personality organization.