The aim of this study is to analyze how individuals experience their eating disorder, the focus being if anorexia may be perceived as a secure safe zone in the new modern world. The aim is to examine if individuals affected with anorexia nervosa understand the disorder as a solution to the modern worlds changes and the new individual freedom that it entails. This will be analyzed with the help of terms in Erich Fromms theories about escape mechanisms and Catarina Kinnvalls theories about the modern worlds ontological insecurity. The study is based on data collected from four informants of different ages and gender. The interviews were conducted through email and informants were chosen based on a strategic selection and snowball sampling. For the analysis of the empirical material Fromms escape mechanisms (authoritarianism, destructiveness and automaton conformity) and Kinnvalls theories of identity in the modern world have been used. The results of the analysis show that the eating disorder has a great significance for the individual construction and maintenance of identity and that the eating disorder becomes a safe zone to retreat to in a world of performance anxiety. To escape the anxiety that arises when individuals are faced with unmanageable choices he/she develops anorexia in an attempt to regain a sense of control and security.

Syftet med denna studie är att genom kvalitativa intervjuer beskriva upplevelser och erfarenheter av medierad social interaktion på Internet för klienter på behandlingshem för missbrukare. Vi ville undersöka hur detta påverkar klienternas möjligheter att förändra sina liv, identitetsskapande och sociala relationer. Vi genomförde enskilda intervjuer med tre personer som jobbar på ett behandlingshem där klienterna har fri tillgång till Internet och med en klient på samma behandlingshem, samt gruppintervjuer med sammanlagt sju personer som hade varierande erfarenhet av behandlingshem. Resultatet visar en allmän negativ syn på medierad social interaktion under behandlingstiden. Den största risken som lyfts fram under intervjuerna är att Internet försvårar för klienterna att bryta med missbruksvärlden. Kontakt med vänner och bekanta i missbruksvärlden kan leda till att klienten avbryter sin behandling. Andra risker som vårt resultat visar är att klienterna lätt kan beställa droger på Internet, att man inte fokuserar på behandlingen och att det blir svårare att bygga upp en identitet och gemenskap i den nyktra världen. / The purpose of this study is to, by using qualitative interviews, describe experiences of mediated social interaction on the Internet for clients in drug treatment. We wanted to examine how this affects clients' ability to change their lives, their identity and social relations. We conducted individual interviews with three people who work at a treatment center where clients have free access to the Internet and with one client on the same centre, and group interviews with a total of seven people who had varied experience in drugtreatment. The results show a general negative view of mediated social interaction during the treatment. The main risk is that clients need to break their connection to “the addiction world” and the Internet complicates this. Contact with friends and acquaintances in “the addiction world” may lead to the client interrupting his or hers treatment. Other risks that our results show is that clients can easily order drugs on the Internet, that you do not focus on the treatment and it makes it more difficult to build an identity and to be part of a community in the sober world.