Eating Disorders

Motivational Enhancement with Eating Disorders

In this post, we look at how Motivational Enhancement Therapy can be applied to a practical situation. More specifically, we’ll discuss how counsellors can utilise this model to assist clients suffering from eating disorders. To start, consider the Four Fundamental Principles (Lacey & Lister, unpublished) outlined below: The client’s drive towards thinness is ego-syntonic – […]

Parenting a Problem Adolescent: Eating Disorders

Now that we’ve covered suicide prevention, there are other problems often associated with youth that are a bit more intractable. Eating disorders tend to fall into this category especially amongst adolescent girls. According to Gillis (2000, cited in McMurray, 2003, 147): ‘Adolescents’ images of themselves are embedded in the way they see their own bodies, […]

Bulimia Nervosa

The essential features of Bulimia Nervosa are binge eating and inappropriate compensatory methods to prevent weight gain at least twice a week for at least three months. The self-evaluation of people with Bulimia Nervosa is excessively influenced by body shape and weight. A binge is defined as eating in a discrete period of time (usually […]

Anorexia Nervosa

MacLeod (1981) states people with anorexia are notoriously difficult persons who are determined to hang on to their symptoms at all costs. This is a common view throughout the medical profession and related fields, possibly due to the ego-syntonic nature of eating disorders – the person is comfortable with the disorder and views it as […]

The Starvation Syndrome

One of the most important advancements in the understanding of eating disorders is the recognition that many of the symptoms once thought to be primary features of anorexia nervosa are actually symptoms of starvation. An experimental study, conducted and published 50 years ago by Ancel Keys and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota (Keys, […]

Stages of an Eating Disorder

Lemberg (1992) also proposes a model of development whereby a person moves from voluntary dieting through a number of stages to reach a fully entrenched eating disorder. Stage 1: Normal, voluntary dieting behaviour. Unfortunately dieting behaviours have become the “norm”, with 47% of people in Australia having tried to lose weight in the past twelve […]

The Development of an Eating Disorder

There are many environmental, cultural, psychological and biological factors which combine in different ways in the development of an eating disorder. These factors can be divided into three factors, as seen below in Figure 1. Important factors which predispose a person to developing an eating disorder include being female, living in Western society, being an […]

Series: Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are complex, multifaceted physical and mental health problems. Their development usually involves a number of different contributing and perpetuating factors. The exact processes are unclear and is it uncertain how they interact to develop or maintain an eating disorder (Fairburn & Harrison, 2003). Contributing factors could include one or a combination of physical, […]