Eating disorder are really not about food

Sufferers of eating disorders have difficulties tolerating and containing feelings.  They often describe their experience of being in their bodies as disembodied.  This partly due to the constant disengagment or detachment from their inner bodily experience due to their constant eating disorder thoughts of attempting to not eat, focussing on body image and constant mind chatter.  Helping people reaawaken and slowly begin to connect to their feelings is critical to recovery.  An eating disorder is such a body focused experience including dance and other somatic experience is vital for embodiment.  Dance, movement and somatic practices help individual enter their body and access unconscious material helps with healing.

A big part of an eating disorder is the development of a system of control.  Usually the central themes are around “I cannot get fat.”  To prevent this I need to develop hypervigilence to food and develop a system that will not allow me to give into my hunger (physiological needs) and eat as minimally as possible.  Thus a fear of food, with each individual having their own particularities.  Of course, we cannot continue to deprive our bodies of food so breaking these rules will happen or the result of starvation is drastic.

Eating disorder are really not about food, but it is really an emotional disorder, because the individual turns to food as a substitute for dealing with bigger emotional issues.  An eating disorder is also an adaptive disorder to deal with multiple issue that involve in an individual’s life that she cannot cope with.  Usually healthier individuals learn to maintain an appropriate level of self awareness, affect regulation, impulse regulation and emotional self protection.  Instead maladaptive and alternative patterns of functioning are used to keep functioning according to perceived external expectation from family and society.  An individual’s own emotional system and needs are chronically ignored and shut down to replaced with the “eating disorder system of control.”

Helping express feelings on a both verbal and non verbal level is key to eating disorder recovery.  Life focus is on food, weight and physical body.  The challenge is to shift the focus back to natural ways of living that include experiencing one’s feelings, following ones life values, emotionally connecting with others, living life according to one’s authentic expressions and developing compassion and acceptions for one’s imperfections.

Feminist, Jungian and existential psychotherapies influence my approach.  Using a mindfulness movement approach with inner listening is crucial for entering the body’s space.  However, step need to be taken prior to this through more structured, externalized projective approaches to look at inner issues in a more concrete way.  Art and structured improvisation themes and ideas are organized in therapy to allow for easier access to internal states.

• Links

  • Authentic Movement
  • Caversham Booksellers
  • CDC Media: Urban Pulse
  • Dorit Osher Interview in Beat Magazine
  • Eating Disorder and Expressive Arts Therapy.
  • Eating Disorder Referral Service
  • Fleming college
  • International Expressive Arts Therapy Association
  • London Dance Collective
  • Monte Nindo Eating Disorder Treatment Center
  • Psychotherapy.ca
  • Renfrew Center
  • Wellesley Women’s Center