Struggling with an Eating Disorder and a Not-So-Good Therapist
One SHM Community Forum member shared her problem about her binge-eating and vomiting problems and not-so-helpful therapist. Joanne answered:
blue bell,
Welcome to these forum, and hurray for you in having the courage to speak up about it. That takes courage and it is always a welcomed sight to see someone be honest about what's going on. In this case, the truth might very well set you free!
Depending on your therapist's training, he/she might be doing what he/she has learned to do with other kinds of clients. The only problem that whole this sort of psychodynamic approach is effective for a number of issues, it is, as you describe, "Soooo not helpful."
What many psychodynamic therapists miss is that eating disordered people feel empty inside and that's why they constantly try to fill up. Then they feel poisoned and need to vomit it out. Psychodynamic therapists are trained at helping you get at what's going on inside and don't necessarily recognize the insatiable hunger to be fed, IMHO.
Behavior therapy is the most effective treatment for binging/purging. It helps you come up with reasonable goals for yourself, based on psychological education and principles, and holds you accountable by focusing much of your treatment hour on what actually happened or didn't happen in the past week. It asks you to gather information during the week, write it down as you binge or purge and then come in and report on it. It might even encourage you to join a group of other eating disorder people to help you learn and get feedback from others, if you are ok with group approaches.
If you can't find anything like that in your area, Overeaters Anonymous meetings are usually free, and do some of those things, but just not in a structured way. You have to do a lot of it on your own, but they do meet regularly and have lots of helpful materials and a structure. Some meetings are much better than others, too.
Cognitive behavior therapy is the exact opposite of psycho dynamic work with a client. If you are thinking of looking for another therapist, see the discussion earlier in this Psychotherapy Forum on how to find a really good therapist to meet your specific needs by Jimmy. He started it somewhere in the autumn of 2007.
You might also look around, or run a search in the Eating Disorder Forum for other discussions of "eating disorder, therapy" or "eating, therapy" or "eating, therapist".
And read at6 least a few the short articles in the Eating Disorder Department of this <www.selfhelpmagazine.com> that houses our discussion forum we are using right now.Joanna Poppink's articles helped me a lot.
The other thing to consider if you are vomiting that often is a discussion with a trusted physician. They can give you medication like Reglan, which will make you digest more quickly, and thereby make vomiting less successful and help you get more nutrients out of your food.
A visit to your dentist might also be helpful, so see if you are wearing away the enamel on your teeth. Often, some doctors and dentists will be trained in how to help you by giving you the right referrals in your community. You might even ask the receptionist if a doctor or dentist has that special training before you make an appointment and go into the office. That could spare you the run around with professionals who don't have specialized training in how to help you.
Best wishes to you. And please come back and let us know what you find, ok?
Hugs,
Jo
Spread the Word!
Comments
Comments
Post new comment