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"If you get rid of the pain before you have answered its questions, you get rid of the self along with it""
Carl Jung
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There is a constant debate over the issue of "choice" in eating disorders
Some, like those on pro anna sites, say eating disorders are a lifestyle choice. At the other end of the spectrum, some believe that eating disorders are brain disorders and there is no choice involved. Like many of these kinds of debates, there is something to be found in each position.
I understand both sides of the issue on a professional and personal level.
When I had anorexia in the 1970's as a teen and young adult, I remember feeling like it was not a choice to restrict my food, exercise etc..not really. I really did feel compelled and taken over......like I just "had to" do things.
Then again I got better,w/o any drugs to change my brain or mindset....I got better in part because I forced myself to make some different choices. I even put myself on a behavior modification project to get in more protein. I resisted, gained and lost the same two pounds for years. There were other choices I made that helped me get better too. And I did,..... eventually, step by step, with many choices I made.... get better.
Now, as a professional, I consider eating disorders a legitimate illness , involving genetics, brain and biology but I also teach all my patients that they have personal choice in this illness too, if not what would I be doing as a therapist? What is my role?
I do not tell patients with schizophrenia ( and I have had a few over 33 years as a therapist) that they have a choice over their delusions or hallucinations. I do not tell a patient with breast cancer that she has a choice over her breast cancer symptoms.
OCD might come closer in a way but mostly I teach clients how to live with OCD, how to react to it, deal with it, compensate for and adjust to it.
I expect more out of my eating disorder patients and I let them know this. I know they can be fully recovered, with no symptoms and no lasting effects. Of this I have no doubt, there is just too much evidence.
A diagnosis of Eating disorder changes when the patient makes different behavioral choices consistently over time. I see it again and again. There are many recovered people out there who have done it.
I'd love to hear what others think?
Carolyn
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