Recently, my friend and I were discussing the pros/cons of her stepping up the level of care in her treatment. Interestingly, “eating in program” was on both the pro and con list. She thinks it’s easier to eat while in program (as opposed to on your own), but that some of the food sucks and you have to eat things you don’t like (or are not comfortable with).
I can definitely relate to this. When you first start a higher level of care (like IOP, PHP, IP – anything involving a …

This is a danger in all group therapy of being the “best worst”. If you can’t be the best, best you can always be the “best worst”. Anyone who has been inpatient knows what I’m talking about. There are some patients that want to make sure you know that their eating disorder is the worst.

(in no particular order)

You measure the cost of things in nutrition appointments (ex: That shirt is one nutrition appointment. These shoes are worth two appointments).
You start dressing like your professionals (or maybe, they starts dressing like you…)
“Treatment” is a recurring event with no end date on your calendar.
You’ve never needed to purchase “Eating in the Light of the Moon” because at some point you have been given a photocopy of every chapter.
In group, no one sits in your seat, even when you’re not there (because you’ve been sitting there …

I am not  an auditory learner.  At all.  I’m definitely a visual learner — in college I took copious notes, but didn’t really grasp the class material until later going over and reading those notes.  There’s just something about reading/writing that I need to get it.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t serve me too well in therapy.  I can have a great session and later that night not even remember half of what we talked about.  And on the same level, when I’m in session I don’t remember half of what I planned …

You think that the only truth that matters is that truth can be measured. Good intentions don’t count. What’s in your heart doesn’t count. Caring doesn’t count.
–Moriarty, House M.D. No Reason

The belief that “things don’t count” has always been a huge obstacle for me in recovery. Maybe originally I used the eating disorder to physically communicate something that I couldn’t verbalize… or maybe it was a manifestation of an unspoken problem that had to surface somehow. Or maybe I just had the biology + trauma = anorexia equation …

Well, I am officially the last one to jump on the “New Psychotherapy Has Potential to Treat Majority Of Cases Of Eating Disorders” article. I’ll admit, this journalist did a great job with his headline — not only did I read the article, but I went on to read up on CBT-E.
To quickly define CBT, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eating Disorders explains:
The strategy underpinning CBT-E is to construct a ‘formulation’ (or set of hypotheses) of the processes that are maintaining the patient’s psychopathology and use it to identify …

This question (turned argument) was posed the other night… Often when you sit down at a restaurant your waiter will come and sit a basket of bread (or tortilla chips if you’re at a Mexican restaurant) on the table–correct? Now, maybe you are recovering from bulimia and that basket of bread is really triggering. Is it disordered to say to the waiter, “No thanks, we don’t need the bread”?
Therapists response: Yes that is disordered because you should be able to have the bread on the table. If …

The relationship between ghrelin, amenorrhea, and eating disorders has been examined time and time again. The consensus seems to be that persistent amenorrhea is likely attributed to disordered eating rather than low body weight. I’ll admit that I am particularly interested in this subject because I do have hypothalamic amenorrhea. This finding is interesting for a few reasons:
1. Return of menses is often a benchmark of physical recovery. Goal weights are subject upon your menstrual cycle… if you’re still not getting your period, then you still don’t …