Navigating (Dis)empowerment: Dialectical Tensions in the Enactment of Resilience of College Students with Eating Disorders

Research has shown a dramatic increase of eating disorders (EDs) among young people during disruptive times. Understanding the role of communication in impeding or enacting resilience not only helps those with EDs develop better strategies for coping and changing their lives but can also inform effective interventions at familial, community, and system levels. Guided by the communication theory of resilience (CTR), our study explores how college students with EDs enacted resilience through recalled interactions with parents, friends, community members, and health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 13 college students diagnosed or self-identified with EDs revealed that communication intended as interventions or protective measures can be perceived as (dis)empowering, triggering (mal)adaptive resilience. The study contributes to CTR by expanding perspectives on resilience triggers as socially constructed risks aligned with multiple contexts to display how communicatively constructing resilience is complex, dynamic, power-laden, and imbued with dialectical tensions of anticipatory-reactive resilience for self and others.