Eating disorder self-diagnosis
I was reading an article (full text available!) by Walter Vandereycken (which I will post about in greater length soon), and something in his online survey caught my eye: In the first part of the survey, participants were asked a few general questions, in cluding self-diagnosis of the type of eating disorder they were showing most...
Contagious Self-Injury
Until my last stint in residential treatment, I never though of self-injury as being contagious. Maybe this is because when I was younger, I couldn’t imagine hurting yourself. I hated getting a shot, letting alone the thought of self-harm. In my mind, it was something that crazy people did. Now, unfortunately, it’s something that I...
The “enough factor”
If you don’t know already, I’ll tell you now: you were born good enough. It’s only your thinking, beliefs and fear that get in the way. Naturally, we all have strengths, weaknesses and flaws but the underlying question we seem to want answered is not really, ‘am I good enough to do A, B or...
Amenorrhea & pregnancy: not mutually exclusive
While it took me a few minutes to rationalize how unplanned pregnancies could be MORE common in those with an ED history, I did eventually come up with a few theories...
Not sold on shame
There was a post on Lifehack the other day called, “3 Reasons Why Shame is Your Friend.” I saw that headline and of course HAD to read it. It turns out it’s the third in a series, after “Why Fear is Your Friend” and “Why Sadness is Your Friend.” How many times have we talked...
Coded excuses
Dr. Walter Vandereycken did a really interesting study on how both professionals and patients viewed dropping out from eating disorder treatment. It's something that I've definitely observed (patients and staff having different takes on why someone leaves...
Social media — a new kind of medialization
I think that social media is creating a new kind of medialization -- one where you don't have that intermediary between researchers and the public. Sure, I retweet news articles all the time, but I can also talk to psychologists, doctors, and researchers directly. Now, I wouldn't consider twitter "a primary source of health information,"...
Medialization catch-22s
While mental illnesses are to some extent social constructions, the thing about research is that you are creating new knowledge by observing and writing about it. While new diagnoses may be fads, they also are probably worthy of additional study and analysis. It's only through additional study that scientists can determine if...
It’s really psychological inflexibility
Several years ago, I had a therapist who called herself "a recovering perfectionist." While I thought that was clever, it wasn't really something that I personally wanted to strive for. Sure, perfectionism can be hugely problematic and maladaptive...
EDs and “doing something”
The line, “You are a human being, not a human being,” would be on my “top 10 overused phrases in therapy” list (were such a list to exist). However, this concept was the first thing to come to mind when I was reading the article, The Reward of Doing “Something”: People have this inclination to...
Magic dust
I’ve been reading a lot of articles this week on pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine. As someone who has unsuccessfully tried way too many medications, this is really interesting to me. It’s no secret that individuals often have to try several psychotropic medications to find one that works for them. It’s part of the psych experience fun....
Reading ED books
Lately Portia de Rossi's book, "Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain" has received a lot of attention. While I haven't had a chance to read it yet, I have probably read a dozen articles reviewing it. In fact, I think I'm the only one who hasn't read the book.
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