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Content and Focus:A brief post-structuralist analysis of recent changes to the criteria for anorexia nervosa in the DSM-5 is presented. These changes are examined in the context of the political and social forces described in existing literature. The main idea that emerges from the analysis is that the creation of diagnostic criteria is a value-driven practice which, in the case of anorexia nervosa, encourages a somatic and controlling clinical approach. A clinical example is then used to illustrate how social and therapeutic discourses might affect therapists and clients in an inpatient setting. A tentative formulation of how post-structuralist theory can be applied in a way which considers how therapist and client are positioned by discourses is also advanced.Conclusion:In the context of the changing diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, it is concluded that poststructuralist theory can be applied usefully for therapists and clients in inpatient settings. This necessitates a degree of reflexive practice which may suit counselling psychologists well. Such an application may also fit in with and improve understanding of existing therapeutic approaches rather than simply deconstructing them.

Content and FocusThis article will discuss phenomenology and phenomenological research methods, and through an exploration, of the case of Empirical Phenomenological Analysis (EPA) will explore the possibility of a phenomenological approach to research through reverie. With regard to the relationship between phenomenology and ‘phenomenological research’, Husserlian phenomenology implies ‘research’, therefore, making the term ‘phenomenological research’ redundant and a misnomer. However, there exists an abundance of ‘phenomenological research methods’, which despite claiming to focus on the lived experienced of the participant, stand contrary to phenomenology in that they are broadly empirical, systematised and psychologise the notion of phenomenology. The case of EPA, which is a phenomenological research method, empirical in nature and mediated in line with ‘scientific practices’ will be discussed in depth. In turn, through the critical analysis of EPA, we see the need for an alternative approach to research, which is apposite with phenomenology’s philosophical aims. As a result, reverie, which includes abstract musings, ruminations and wonderings, will be discussed as an approach to research through phenomenology. It is argued that reverie, contrary to traditional ‘phenomenological research methods’, facilitates access to the participants’ concerns through an attendance to subjective and intersubjective experience in the research process, enabling the relational to emerge in and through research.