**Abstract**

The extant, contemporary psychoanalytic literature suggests that pathological dissociation is at the heart of most psychiatric disorders, ranging from personality disorders to affective and psychotic disorders. This chapter will begin by situating Janet's contributions to the splitting of consciousness, and then discuss dissociation, and the resultant splintering of the self, as a ubiquitous response to early relational trauma. Specific dissociated self-states as they appear in anorexia and binge-eating disorder will be put forward, using detailed clinical vignettes to describe the paradoxical functions of these self-states, and the way they structure the eating-disordered patient's relationship to food, eating, and their body. Treatment implications as they pertain to relational psychoanalytic technique will be considered.

**Keywords:** dissociation, Janet, self-states, anorexia, binge-eating, relational psychoanalysis
