How a Clinician Can Have the Most Impact on Recovery

One effect of social media advertising and self-promotion for eating disorder practitioners and programs is the idealization of the process. Getting better from an eating disorder is not a panacea for all of life’s woes. It’s just a way to get better from an illness.

Part of the idealization is that programs feel the need to present novel concepts around recovery and act as if only they know how recovery works. The result is less of a need to find consensus in appropriate care and more of a drive to distinguish oneself from the crowd. That’s about self-promotion and not really about recovery.

Progress in treating challenging illnesses comes from a collaborative effort from all people trying to help these patients. No one person has all the answers. Only as a collective can we find more successful ways to help these people get well.

The goal of that effort must be rooted in a desire to help others. When the primary motive is financial gain or notoriety, the ultimate purpose of healing people with these illnesses is no longer paramount. It’s impossible to establish a proven system of treatment when maintaining a social media presence and writing a book and becoming a larger presence in the eating disorder space are the ultimate goals.

The process of recovery is long and arduous. There are always moments of doubt when it feels like the eating disorder behaviors are too strong or the meaning of life too weak to go forward. Often people have had too much hurt and disappointment to endure another similar experience. Or maybe they have no other outlet as meaningful or as important as the eating disorder.

Last week a colleague mentioned a recent small study that showed how having any practitioner be committed to a person’s recovery increases the chance of recovery immensely. This conclusion registered with me immediately. The commitment of one provider can be enough to determine if recovery is possible.

Above all, hope, care and dedication are the hallmarks of adequate support for someone in recovery. Those traits don’t guarantee success but are necessary for there to be a chance to get well.

It’s enough to understand how personal recovery is for each person and how having someone truly committed to team with the most hardened person trapped in an eating disorder can give them hope for the future. To me, there is no bigger takeaway in what makes recovery a real possibility.