Many of those suffering from anorexia and bulimia are high-functioning adults coping with stress, anxiety, and depression. They may have tried many different solutions to their problem. This article explores the typical experiences of a few people suffering from such eating disorders. Most therapists today deal with these disorders by first treating the underlying causes of the body-image problems. These causes are assumed to be past experiences and how they may have affected us.

Women and men who suffer from these illnesses may have to overcome deeper issues ranging from poor self-esteem to childhood abuse. Effective therapy can help improve their professional and family lives as well.

Therapy for anorexia and bulimia

Anorexia, bulimia, and eating disorders are a way of coping when stress and anxiety seem unbearable.

With the encouragement of a therapist, an anorexic or bulimic client can learn to face the sources of her stress or anxiety, and find healthier means of reacting to stressful situations.

One woman who had overcome eating disorders several years earlier consulted a psychotherapist in Austin when her problems recurred. This woman had recently moved into Austin, and she was without the support of family and friends while working at a new job. She had reverted to her old methods of coping with stress, namely food. Food is a form of self-treatment for many people, as it was in this woman’s case.

Her therapist helped her to see her need for developing new relationships, and she also participated in group therapy to meet people.

By the end of therapy, she made new friends and was excelling in her new job. Her eating disorder no longer affected her.

Eating disorders and treating depression

Depression can be another cause of eating disorders too. Of course, eating disorders can cause someone to be depressed, so determining cause from effect is difficult.

A depressed person may overeat, or not eat enough, and so either gain or lose a lot of weight. This will affect their physical health. A therapist will help her concentrate on her strengths and regain her sense of balance.

One woman in Houston was depressed because her husband had had an affair and left her. She blamed herself and her recent weight gain for this, but was not able to lose weight. She tried everything she could but the weight remained. Therapy helped her see several other contributors to her depression. She explored some of the events in her past that were causing her a great deal of distress.

She was able to take responsibility for her eating habits, and find a warm and supportive relationship.

Eating disorders, PTSD and victims of sexual abuse

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder may happen because of one-time traumas likes being the victim of an accident or a crime, and also because of long-term abuse like childhood sexual or physical abuse.

PTSD often goes hand in hand with eating disorders.

Victims of childhood abuse sometimes keep the abuse secret, and the therapist may be the first person they confide in. Sometimes when childhood abuse has been blocked out, a reaction may be triggered in adult life by seemingly unrelated events. And lots of times, bulemia or overeating is a symptom. One therapist in Denver helped her client work her way through traumatic memories by giving her art and journaling exercises. These gave the victim a sense of perspective and she was able to stop blaming herself. She also became better connected with others emotionally. Her eating disorder markedly improved.

Eating disorders and counseling for couples

Eating disorders may affect someone who is married or in a committed relationship.

Counseling can benefit married, engaged, or lesbian and gay couples, if one has an eating disorder. The partner with the eating disorder may feel guilty for what he thinks he is causing his partner to feel. And the partner may feel guilty for feelings of resentment towards the partner with the disorder.

That is why couples therapy helps so much.

The most common problems that bring partners into therapy are poor communication, or upheavals like illness, death of a family member, or an affair. Any of these can plunge partners into depression and conflict and often make the eating disorder worse.

Therapy can find the cause of the dissatisfaction, and a solution both partners are happy with while preserving the relationship. It helped one lesbian couple in Austin to come to terms with each other’s families of origin. They were able to work out ways to achieve both their goals without sabotaging their relationship. Even though one partner remained quite overweight, the couple achieved a peaceful resolution and enjoyed a much better relationship.

By: Richard Geller

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Everybody eats too much sometimes. After all, what would the point of Thanksgiving be if it wasn’t to stuff ourselves? At what point does an occasional indulgence turn into a real problem? Compulsive overeating is when you eat for reasons other than hunger and past the point of feeling full. People suffering with this eating disorder tend to be overweight, and are usually aware that their eating habits are abnormal.

Causes of Eating Disorders

Most people perceive people with eating disorders as having an obsession with food. However, this perception is just a myth because the real cause of eating disorders is usually a deeper psychological problem that a person has to deal with. Eating disorders can also occur in people who are suffering from physical or mental problems that cannot be dealt with appropriately. In this case, consulting a psychiatrist or a therapist can usually help a lot in preventing a person from developing eating disorders.

An eating disorder can consist of starving, purging or stuffing. Regardless of the exact causes of eating disorders, the individual should seek professional help as soon as possible.

The psychological causes can be many, it could be a trauma that created a negative self body image and then the eating disorder. Low self esteem, problems in a relationship, perfectionism, sexual trauma those are causes also. Negative remarks on the body image of a teenager can have a huge impact on her emotions and mental health

Biological factors. Studies indicate that certain people may have a genetic predisposition to develop an eating disorder and that it probably runs in the family. Several researches prove that having a biological mother or sister with an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating) increases an individual’s likelihood of developing the same disease. A study involving twins also support this conclusion.

Symptoms of Eating Disorders

Eating disorders plague millions of men and women throughout the world. Many people don’t seek help and eventually die from their disease. Eating disorders are diseases. They afflict the mind, tricking the individual into thinking he or she needs to take the most drastic measures to change his or her appearance. The individual then takes action, be it binge eating, starving themselves, or purging.

A less detected, but still dangerous eating disorder is binge eating. Still another type of eating disorder is compulsive eating. Compulsive eating is known to afflict the most number of people among all the eating disorders but the symptoms of this condition are often very mild so it is not detected until the situation is severe.

They always engage themselves in a compulsive exercise regimen.

They always feel fat despite the glaring fact that they are already below the normal weight.

Continuously exercising

Running to the bathroom following meals

Spending long period of time in bathroom with water running to hide vomiting sounds

Treatment of Eating Disorders

Why do such places exist, anyway? Who in their right mind would think it is okay to promote a disease as if it were a good thing instead of a bad thing? It doesn’t matter how little sense it makes. What matters is that they do exist and they are causing harm to hundreds, if not thousands of people just by keeping them from seeking treatment.

Part of the gymnastics training program should involve lecture sessions given by nutritionists to educate the young athletes on proper nutrition and why eating healthy is necessary to fuel a body undergoing such strenuous activities. It is also crucial that gymnasts who already have eating disorders are encouraged and supported to seek help, and that counseling be available to them when they do. Gymnasts who suffer from eating disorders need the assurance that they will not be subject to criticism or disparaging treatment if they come forward and acknowledge their need for help.



By: Vanya Hartwell

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