Trust in Eating Disorder Treatment

Relationships are the fundamental but unreliable cornerstones of daily life. We need people to chat with about the weather, people who will care about our problems, people who we just can't stand, people we nod hello to in the corner store, and above all people we love. Unexpectedly, trust is at the heart of not just the most intimate but all of these relationships.

Trust implies reliability. In any relationship, it is comforting to know what to expect, whether it is the daily chat about small things, the almost imperceptible nod of recognition or the hug that confirms you're not alone. In our increasingly isolated world, more and more common wisdom points to loving yourself first, yet so much of our self-image stems from the relationships we take for granted in our lives from the deepest to the most superficial. That foundation acts as confirmation that our own self-image is accurate and as a springboard for challenges we face each day: successes, failures and the critical feeling that we belong.

Learning to rely on an eating disorder means losing faith in human relationships. The eating disorder symptoms are always reliable. The immediate benefits are very predictable. Life, painful as it is, moves forward in a highly structured fashion. The experience of living with an eating disorder is a bold rejection of personal relationships and even the concept of trust entirely. Some people completely isolate themselves and others just keep their friends or even boyfriends at bay because the disorder remains paramount.

In addition to reliability, the second and more hidden benefit of the eating disorder is its availability. Unlike any human relationship, the disorder and symptoms never let you down. Any disturbing event, feelings or even thoughts can be eliminated by listening to the eating disorder and doing what it says. Unlimited access to such a powerful way of life is hard to replicate. No single person can be so available and so reliable. Existing alone in the world demands that the person handle the discomfort of feeling emotions and find the patience to let these experiences pass, both daunting tasks.

For any patient to embark on the process of recovery, she needs to reconsider her belief in trust and relationships again. I have written at length about the importance of the relationship between the patient and therapist in eating disorder treatment, specifically how that relationship can provide hope, direction and motivation to move a patient away from the security of the disorder towards a fuller life. The intimacy combined with self-reflection in therapy can help a patient question the truths that the eating disorder stands by: the certainty of her negative self-image and the fact that she must live life on her own and trust no one. But just the step of questioning these beliefs--which have been written in stone for years--begins the process of trusting in the therapy. And that means considering the unthinkable: learning how rely on others for a different view of herself and a new way to live. 

Once a patient begins this shift in her mindset, the treatment becomes a trial run for building relationships in life. That means learning what availability and reliability mean in personal relationships. The eating disorder literature postulates that the relationship in therapy needs to be nurturing but also gently authoritative. I have always understood these traits to represent those of a kind mentor who gives caring, firm advice. But these traits have also felt limited, as if the treatment were a revolving door, as if the therapist shouldn't really care too much. In order to compete with the eating disorder, the therapy--even better, the treatment team as a whole--needs to understand what it's up against. The team needs to work hard to provide reliable and available care to have any chance of competing. Although consistent, effective work in treatment can establish both of these in the session, that leaves many, many hours in the week when the person is still very alone.

In all of those free hours, a patient can start to drown in the eating disorder again. The thoughts of doubt turn back to shame and finally to an overwhelming surge of emotion. These experiences, many patients have told me, just don't usually happen to someone with an eating disorder. Before long, even the most motivated patient will cede to the inexorable pull back to the symptoms. For patients who start to believe in recovery and the therapeutic relationship, the goal is to learn how to hold onto the idea of recovery and the relationship as a buffer--at times even a buoy--to survive the onslaught of the disorder. Then the therapy can begin to provide comfort even outside the sessions. More often than not, contact outside the therapy is critical, by phone, email or even texting. Almost always, when the patient begins to think treatment can be reliable and available in a different but meaningful way, the patient is overwhelmed with the fear that the therapist doesn't really understand or care and even that the relationship isn't real.

What does a therapist say to that? When the therapy is bounded by a financial agreement and (hopefully) clear limitations, what defines real? Moreover, this line of reasoning is the last resort of an eating disorder, backed into a corner, saying, "I don't trust you and I don't trust anyone!" Although the therapeutic relationship is unique, this belief--so strong and dominant in the mind of an eating disorder--repudiates how we all function in this world. How can a relationship not be real? But there is a quieter voice behind this absolute saying something very different. This voice, the thoughts and feelings of the person behind the disorder, wants desperately to be seen and heard and cared for, but it also believes the relationship will ultimately be disappointing and eventually just vanish. After the internal torture by the disorder, the patient is terrified to trust anyone again. Each small step strengthens her belief in the therapy and in her ability to lead her life without the buffer of the disorder but also intensifies the terror of believing in trust and relationships again. The fragility of human relationships seems to pale in comparison to the certainty of the disorder yet also makes the patient feel real and human again. The ultimate goal is to reopen the visceral power of personal connection for the patient, and, hopefully, to make her feel alive again.  

The next post will reflect more concretely on how therapy can even begin to replace the availability of the eating disorder. This topic, not often discussed among therapists, is contact outside of therapy, and, more generally, the complicated nature of boundaries in eating disorder treatment.

Mediocrity and Specialness

I didn't think Mandarin classes for a five year old was that outlandish--why wouldn't a parent want her child to speak the family native language--until I learned the family wasn't Chinese. But then I hesitated a moment. Isn't it a parent's prerogative to want to do everything for their child? What's wrong with learning a second language? It will help in the long run with ... then I caught myself. It's just too easy to get swept up with the tide. 

There is a singularly American concept that success is measured only by being the best, extraordinary, unique. But I think the ultimate goal of this undue pressure is to be special. Our culture celebrates the accomplishments of the rich and famous and exalts these chosen ones to a class of their own. The communal desperation to be special has even transformed the American dream--originally known as hope and opportunity for everyone--into an all-out pursuit of wealth and fame. Taking this line of reasoning another fateful step, life is worthless without publicly admired success. Quality of life and meaningful experiences have been squeezed out by resume-building activities starting with children too young to understand. The underlying truth too painful for children and parents alike is that very, very few people find that kind of success in life. There is a fine line between the drive to achieve realistic goals and the absolute necessity of specialness at all costs. But for many, a moderately successful life has become simply mediocre. From what I can tell, many people believe mediocrity is a sad fate for us all.

There are few spots to fill in the elite world, and that reality starts to become clear to the adolescent. The weeding out of the undeserving begins in high school and college--a stage of life marked by the need for a concrete identifier, something that screams to the world who you are. The fear of just being you overwhelms any sensible judgment. The internal belief of immortality means no option is off limits. At a time of exploration and experimentation, the memories and experiences at this time of development often leave an indelible mark on a life but can also lead someone astray in the name of individuality and specialness. One surefire way out of the world of mediocrity is mastery of food and thinness. Nothing attracts the envious glares of other girls and the lustful stares of the boys as well. The attention is immediate and powerful and the message is clear: you truly are special. An eating disorder can catapult a teenager out of mediocrity into the promised land.

The real danger of associating an eating disorder with specialness is the effective merger of identity and illness. An adolescent grapples with a chameleon-like sense of herself. Being a teenager means putting on one costume after another, picking up bits of an identity along the way and hoping to find coherence in the end. These sudden internal shifts and endless string of poor decisions are laughable from a distance, perfectly reasonable to the child and terrifying to the adult trying to contain her. An eating disorder soaks up all the adolescent angst instantly by providing identity, specialness and coping mechanisms in a neat little package.

Many people can live in this bubble for years. The limited satisfaction and opportunities are routinely trumped by a powerful identity and point of reference. For years you really feel special by staying thin and by following your disorder. There are many pro-Ana sites that prove the power of that sisterhood. For some people the combination of a strong identity and sense of immortality sends them to the grave. Clarity never comes in time.

A moment of doubt in the eating disorder is a small step back into the terror of mediocrity. Teenagers who never experienced the liberating step into an eating disorder had to come to grips with their own mediocrity over a stretch of years. The recognition of strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, realistic goals and outrageous expectations all aid to create a solid foundation in adulthood. Specialness and mediocrity blend into a more nuanced view of the human condition. To the person trapped in an eating disorder, mediocrity and the subsequent loss of identity feel catastrophic. She has never had to struggle with the feelings of isolation and hopelessness. She has never had to manage the intensity of emotions and fear associated with both the process of life and its defined end.

The transition from mediocrity to a realistic view of one's life often originates in the therapeutic relationship itself. The relief of fully exposing the eating disorder and all its beliefs and flaws has two important consequences. First, the patient feels as if she can stand alone separate from her disorder. Perhaps, there is more to her than the number on a scale. Second, the desire to feel special shifts from the disorder to the therapy. This is the first time the patient actually looks outside herself for guidance and restarts the process halted years ago when the eating disorder solved all of her adolescent fears. Since her peers no longer face the same identity crisis she ignored for years, she could just feel so alone that she retreats back to the disorder. But therapy can provide the mirror and feedback to start this arduous but potentially fulfilling journey back to feeling whole--and, in a different way, even special--again.

These last three posts have addressed some emotional sticking points in recovery, reasons the eating disorder just won't let go. The last post in this series will cover the topic of trust both in treatment and in life.

What Does Forgiveness Mean (in eating disorder recovery)?

This topic runs the risk of devolving into a self-help diatribe but also touches upon something fundamentally necessary for full recovery. People commonly mistake the motivation for having an eating disorder as vanity and competition. I have tried to describe how someone with a chronic eating disorder actually exists in a very different internal world. The reality of feeling trapped by shame, self-criticism and suffering lacks any of the perceived mastery of food and glamour of being thin. For a patient to embrace the concept of a world without interminable mental torture, she needs to consider two steps towards forgiveness: choice and regret. The inability to accept either one inevitably limits the possibility of full recovery.

When someone gets sick, the initial human but often futile response is to find blame. Who caused this to happen and why? There are a few controversial exceptions: lung cancer, drug abuse, obesity-induced diabetes--illnesses seemingly caused by personal choice. And that includes eating disorders. A group of students in the lunch line or colleagues at the water cooler all too often gossip about the girl who's too thin. The implication is that she can choose to start eating and she would be fine. And if that girl dips her toe in the water of the illness and then proceeds to dive in head first, to everyone around her she chose to develop an eating disorder. Granted, she could have been a confused and scared 14 year old girl with no one to turn to, but, in the eyes of her family, friends, treatment team, in the eyes of the world, she is surely responsible. She wasn't stricken with an illness; she chose her own affliction.

What is similar about illnesses that blame the patient is that society has a role in the initial exposure. Although someone chooses to smoke and smoking causes cancer, that person--usually a young person with poor judgment--does not believe it will lead to a lifelong addiction. Moreover, how can it be legal for a lethal substance to be legally sold and marketed, especially to those most vulnerable? If our society promotes thinness and weight loss as a necessary part of being a successful woman, a percentage of girls who do go on a diet or throw up their food will end up with an eating disorder. The values of an era define the social illnesses of the time and are inherent in the disorder itself. So that even with these issues clearly laid out, even if the patient brings them up herself in treatment, escaping blame for the eating disorder remains a challenging leap in recovery. Indeed, the cause and effect appear to be one and the same.

The experience of having an eating disorder is centrally a mental exercise. Since emotion and personal connection is stripped from her life, the patient exists largely through her painful, harsh, punishing thoughts. In a world where every negative emotion or thought can be diagnosed and medicated away, the societal norm is that thoughts can and should be contained and eliminated. Any unwanted thought that lingers and, heaven forbid, leads to action, is a sign of weakness. Even the central mechanism of the disorder--not just the cause and effect--reinforces the idea that having an eating disorder is a personal choice.

Forgiveness starts with true recognition of how powerless the patient has been to the whims of the eating disorder. The driving force to remain stuck and spinning in the world of disordered thoughts and behaviors has been impossible to escape. I have discussed in previous posts why someone who experiments with disordered eating might become sick and why an acute eating disorder becomes chronic. These factors remain out of the patient's control. Our society has created a world to lure young people into an eating disorder and provided few means of escape. The seemingly controllable thoughts are actually the critical symptom of the disorder. The burden of personal responsibility for the eating disorder is the communal tactic to fob off our own responsibility of sacrificing so many young women. And the myth that all of these girls chose this disorder is debunked by the fact that society paints them into a corner. What other choice do they have?

When a patient begins to concede she is powerless and may not control the illness, she unleashes a torrent of regret. A glimpse of recovery makes the years trapped in the disorder even more painful to remember. To imagine there was a way out all that time makes the cycle of the illness even more pointless. How does one reconcile those lost years and begin the struggle to find a new path in life? Having been grounded in an excruciating present, the past looks like a tunnel of loss too deep to even contemplate, let alone mourn.

Unfortunately, although therapy can often make headway in reducing the sense of blame, I have found that directly facing a mountain of regret can backfire. For women who are smart and motivated and who have allowed themselves lofty but attainable goals, fully reconsidering the past is a sobering task. Instead of having years to reevaluate their future, the sudden revelation they are not to blame opens up the immediacy of the state of their lives today. There is no easy way to handle such a shift in self-perception and personal direction. I think people who do find full recovery tend to use a moderate amount of denial of the enormity of the change in order to function each day. They try to stick with the transition in the moment and work to lessen the punishing thoughts and incorporate a new self-identity. By staying present, they don't dwell on the past. The regret still lies under the surface and frequently is discussed in therapy but rarely takes over. In this way, the mourning is protracted but tolerable and doesn't impede movement forward.

The recognition of being powerless and of the sense of loss is a bitter pill to swallow after riding the high of food mastery for so long. These changes highlight the slow descent into mediocrity--a word frequently used by patients in recovery and uniformly despised. The eating disorder makes people feel special, even as its appeal diminishes over the years. The next post will address the importance of mediocrity and specialness in recovery.              

Shame and eating disorders

The experience of shame is a part of the human condition: we all eat the apple from the garden of Eden at a very young age. Children experience shame of their bodies or their behavior without the perspective to comprehend what it means. This shame--in its primal form--is deeply buried within an eating disorder. The obvious shame of being sick is one facet, but at the center is something truly existential. People with eating disorders feel like there is something really wrong or even, in the most simplistic term, bad at the core. The irrefutable existence of this badness makes the eating disorder feel like a just punishment. The problem in treatment is that the source of shame is both fully accepted by the patient but also completely elusive. There is nothing to point to or home in on because--and this is where the logic of the eating disorder becomes a house of cards--there is nothing there. The shame and the central badness are one and the same. Rather than searching for a source for the shame, the therapy needs to find out why and how the shame took over in the first place and then expose it to the patient. If the shame was planted there first, then the patient unknowingly created a world to justify her false reality. Recovery can feel like a complex knot to untangle.

In treatment, shame creates a barrier which stops the patient from being able to talk freely and to be herself. Everyone knows what it's like to feel inhibited. Imagine having a secret so large, so abhorrent that revealing anything about oneself will lead to catastrophe. Imagine not knowing exactly what that secret is except that letting one's guard down will without a doubt reveal everything to the world. Imagine knowing that one is an absolutely awful person but pretending to be someone else will keep the charade of life going. Imagine always feeling like you're one step from losing everything. Living in such a precarious world can--too most people--seem surreal: constantly putting on an act, being terrified of being found out, never being yourself and never-ending shame. But this is the world that traps someone with an eating disorder. Under these circumstances, the punishing eating disorder completes the circle and feels like just retribution for just being allowed to live.

The first step towards addressing the shame is to break the almost delusional cycle. Even though the logic of the eating is precarious, the shame and punishment feel completely deserved. The therapist can start to question these deeply-held beliefs. What makes you so bad? What are you being punished for? What makes you different from everyone else? By gently probing the thought process, the therapist pokes holes in the eating disorder mantle. Patients have never spoken about the shame with anyone so it can be a revelation to actually question the eating disorder in any way. Often the effect is surprisingly brisk and empowering.

But the shame cannot instantly wash away and leave good self-esteem and well-being in its wake. Once the logic breaks down, patients are confused that the shame lingers and are furious that the requisite punishment continues. Eating the forbidden fruit may have shattered eternal bliss, but the process doesn't happen in reverse. The work in therapy involves looking for a new reflection of oneself. With no other way to process thoughts and feelings in the world, we all revert to the default self-image. The long-term goal is to build a structure that explains how to live in a world not dominated by shame.

The bigger revelation is that the shame was never warranted, and years were spent enduring an illusory punishment. Many people, faced with this shock of reality, find themselves quickly hidden behind the shame and the eating disorder again. The process of nurturing a new self-image necessitates intense feelings of vulnerability and discomfort--experiences that until now were avoided at all costs. Trust in oneself and in the treatment is crucial to take the first steps away from shame and from this badness. This post highlighted several important issues in eating disorder ecovery related to shame--namely feeling special and trust--and these will be further discussed in upcoming posts. But for a new way of seeing oneself in the world to fully take, the next step is forgiveness. That will be the topic of the next post.

Reflections on Media and Eating Disorders

Using therapy as a model for good parenting is a dangerous line of reasoning and altogether inaccurate. Although effective therapy can reveal what was missing in a parent-child relationship, inflicting therapy on your children never helps. The therapeutic relationship has many boundaries and rules that render it awkward and distant yet incredibly intimate--very unlike the parent-child bond. However, those limits also make therapy safe for the patient to explore experiences and feelings that otherwise feel taboo in the outside world. The therapist--in addition to fully engaging with the patient--uses these explorations first to understand how a patient lives, feels and relates in the rest of her life and then to reflect back what it might mean about the past, present and future. This process creates a mirror for the patient to look at herself and her life in a new way, and that perspective can lead to therapeutic change. I think that the collective therapies of women with eating disorders similarly generalizes to explain why disordered eating has become an accepted way of life. Perhaps the powerful ambivalence of these women in treatment reflects a society that has trapped them within an epidemic of eating disorders and disordered eating. And perhaps the aspects of therapy that help patients find the way to moments of arrival also explain what is missing in the media-centered environment women live in--and kids grow up in--today.

Attention, compassion, listening, limits and patience. These attributes of eating disorder therapy are sufficient for successful treatment. They are also essential for parenting but  on their own represent the ineffective therapy-influenced ideal: treating kids like mini-adults. What is missing is the eternal frustration and anger that bubbles over--from parents and kids alike--when children come up against rules and limits. Kids seem hardwired to creatively challenge any boundary set in their way until the child and/or responsible adult finally gets angry. In therapy for eating disorders, personal expression of anger is almost exclusively self-inflicted since any sense of individuality, identity and self worth emanates from the success of controlling food and weight. Even experiencing anger is taboo and a sign of weakness--how can you stand up to others when it is impossible to stand up to the thoughts in your head--and leads directly to an escalation in the harsh, punishment of the eating disorder. Thus, the therapist needs to focus on compassion and kindness to counter the horror of the disordered thoughts and behaviors. The moments of arrival expose how harmful and unnecessary this punishment is and open up a world of hope, promise and emotion. There is no need for the therapist to reinforce the rules and limits children might need because the eating disorder has turned them into a prison.

The contradictory expectations of young girls--boundless opportunity combined with extreme limitations--explain how the developmental anger of childhood transforms into the punishing disorder. Girls need to strive academically, socially and athletically to achieve as much as, or even more than, boys just to prove themselves. Yet the insidious, fully accepted message of thinness and control over food is the necessary foundation to any measure of success. Fat women who are financial scions, CEOs, lawyers or doctors are still fat first. This message is a societal leash that reins in any excess confidence women may feel by demanding they strive for an unattainable goal. In addition, girls are expected to be grateful for what they have since women have never been lucky enough to have so much opportunity. Last, girls see the lives their role models lead: a frantic rush to have it all while doing nothing very well. Despite the seeming excess of opportunity, girls are fully aware of life's limitations. The promise of a wide world of options does not match the lives of women around them. With the burden of generations past, the demand for thinness and no clear path ahead, there is no room to push up against the boundaries the way boys do. Instead, an inward focus on food and weight is encouraged at an early age to channel any frustration. If striving for thinness and disordered eating provides children a solution to an insoluble reality, then it is up to parents as a whole to devise a more effective alternative.

It is all too easy for me to write a series of prescriptions for parents: support girls' self-esteem, raise sensitive, self-aware boys, make sure girls know they are loved and be sure girls know their value in the world. I certainly believe that and more, just as I know those messages--when a patient really starts to believe them--contribute greatly to eating disorder recovery. But these truisms don't address the real goal: prevention.

Life often feels like an endless series of choices. Each fork in the road closes off certain opportunities forever while opening up otherwise hidden options for the future. But progress comes from making those decisions. Trapped by unreasonable expectations and inwardly-focused anger, girls are supposed to leave all of their options open yet not make any decisions, all of which guarantees that they have none. Towards the end of successful treatment, long after the moments of arrival, the sessions are tinged with a sense of peacefulness intertwined with loss. Patients often are waiting for the next storm of recovery to weather, but it never comes. Gradually, we start to talk about acceptance of themselves and their lives. Perhaps this is who they are and their life has taken a certain path through the eating disorder in a new direction. The calm doesn't mean life will lack ups and downs, successes and disappointments, new adventures and painful losses. But those changes are now external, not reflections of the internal chaos and punishment within the eating disorder. These patients are free to foist the anger elsewhere and not suffer for it. Parents may not be able to change the conflicting pressures girls face but can work together to find new rules to play by. Feminist thought has left girls holding the imperative not to accept the world as it is, a motto distorted by the media--and condoned by society in general--into a personal attack against girls' self-acceptance. But perhaps parents can reflect a new model of life to which girls can aspire: a balance between the continued need to buck the inherent paternalism (because girls can get angry too), with a renewed focus on self-acceptance--mind, spirit and especially body.

The next post will move away from the topic of media to explore the role of shame in eating disorders.

Children, Media and Eating Disorders, Part II

Most people can describe the gist of where their eating disorder came from, what they're missing in their life and what the eating disorder does for them, but it is an intellectual exercise and often only camouflage. Fundamentally, they don't really know what will help them get better. Focused and effective treatment of people with eating disorders needs to address the painful reality that their lives are run by the disorder without disrupting the core therapeutic relationship. This demands a few critical things: consistent but not judgmental attention to eating behaviors, unwavering compassion for the trials of enduring the illness, the capacity and desire to really listen, clear limits as to what therapy can do and what it can't and, most important, patience. When one of these ingredients is lacking, the patient will quickly recognize the deficiency and react, usually by getting angry or leaving the treatment. In a larger context, the therapist's job is to figure out which of these essential components means the most to the patient. In other words, what aspect of the relationship really helps slow down or even stop the symptoms.

For people whose symptoms do get better, there is a moment--or more likely a series of moments--when they finally see and feel what it is like to let someone, initially the therapist, into their lives. In that moment, a patient, who has only let herself exist in a small world hemmed in by a ruthless disorder, can finally see the freedom that exists for everyone else. What has felt like the calm sanctuary of the disorder transforms into the lonely prison she has occupied all these years. This is the opportunity for a patient to truly see what recovery looks and feels like, to finally arrive in treatment. It can be simultaneously terrifying to acknowledge how much time has been lost and miraculous to see the symptoms as relentless but for the first time not invulnerable. And this all happens with another person, the therapist. Allowing this real connection helps the patient realize what has happened to her, what is happening and how painful it all has been. The hidden suffering, even from the patient herself, becomes a moment of shared compassion for her struggle to try to survive the illness. At that point, when the intellectual exercise becomes grounded in the reality of living with an eating disorder and in the possibility of recovery, going back no longer feels like an option.

Patients often experience these moments as an immediate reliving of the entire course of the eating disorder but from a completely different point of view. This necessitates a rethinking of what the disorder has meant all these years. Most eating disorders begin between the ages of twelve and twenty, but the time of onset has more to do with luck and opportunity--such as enough privacy to use symptoms or exposure to really learn how to do them--than anything else. The vulnerability to the illness begins much earlier, as I explained in the last post. For many people, by the time they have ridden the course from initial exposure through the powerful, painful high of the first years of the illness, they are trapped. What felt like a choice, although it never was, starts to feel like a life sentence. The main delusion of an eating disorder, and what makes it so enticing, is that the person has mastered the world of food and weight and therefore is special, but the reality is quite the opposite: she is ill and unable to truly live. By allowing the therapist in and facing this reality, the patient irreversibly shatters that delusion. Re-evaluating every moment of the entire eating disorder opens up a host of emotions.  It is a rude awakening from the blinding calmness the eating disorder creates and a personal challenge to find the resiliency to face a wholesale shift in identity and self-worth.

These moments of arrival perplex me more and more. As I explained in a recent post, it has been eye-opening to realize that women with eating disorders often seem less stricken by an illness then chosen by a set of core personality traits--ones well-suited to success--combined with the conflicting expectations of society. The near universality of these powerful moments in successful therapy has the same jarring effect on my understanding of eating disorders. The moments feel remarkably similar no matter how different the person or relationship. I feel like I have witnessed the shattering of the shared delusion so many times, but how can they all feel the same? The essence of psychotherapy reinforces that all people and therapies are different, and so the sameness of these moments becomes all the more striking and has brought me to consider that the derailed development of identity and self-worth, especially in children, may be the missing link. The realizations occur when success within the eating disorder stops being synonymous with self-worth. But this means that the patient's identity must have been intertwined with food and weight long ago, well before the eating disorder started. Similarly, perhaps no true self-understanding ever started to develop, and these moments in therapy may be the first ones--no matter the age of the patient--of recognition of her own identity and value in the world.

With this foundation, these moments of arrival appear to be the formative experiences of learning to know oneself--something the influence of media has largely replaced in a child's process of growing up. If the messages and influence of the media are inescapable, then the goal is not to fight back as much as to offer viable alternatives: a way out for the young girls who see no other solution than to build an identity around food and weight. It also explains why these moments in therapy are so similar. Each moment represents a collective experience of helplessness and frustration: if living through an eating disorder--the preferred lifestyle of the times--does not work, what else is there? Living through food and weight seemed like the only way to make sense of it all.

These women have practically become the casualties of a lost art of parenting: creating hope and opportunity and individuality in kids in lieu of the current message of striving and conforming to a meaningless norm. What other value do women have in our society? Where can kids, especially girls, find role models who believe in a different kind of self-worth? What is there to strive for when the media influences our every thought and feeling? This brings the post full circle. When I wrote above about what a therapist needs to do to create an environment to promote successful therapy, I also described what children need to avoid this exact pitfall. When I suggested the therapist needs to search for what aspect of the relationship alleviates the eating disorder symptoms, I also described what children need from parents, friends and the world around them to find their own identity and their own voice and not succumb to the reductive appeal of the world of the media.

Next post, I will try to expand on how to apply the critical aspects of successful therapy to parenting about food, weight and the media.

Children, Media and Eating Disorders, Part I

The media's message has invaded the home and family as much as every other facet of our society, and there are many obvious reasons why. As a business opportunity, children represent a valuable advertising target if only because of their potential lifetime brand loyalty and penchant for browbeating parents into spending money. Millions of young souls are the tabula rasa of a media culture--a social movement masquerading as entertainment--primed to usurp parents' rightful authority and shape a directionless generation all too prepared to feel inadequate and fat, fat, fat. And why not? Kids have no idea where to look for guidance and identity, and the media can't do enough satisfy its own hunger for power and influence in the marketplace and for growth at any cost. And who's going to protect them anyway? Regulatory agencies or big business? Several previous posts make it clear that the answer is no. Parents? Themselves?

For parents raised on the splendor of icons like Tony the Tiger and "Trix are for Kids," media, advertising and TV used to mean something very different. It felt like sitting on the edge of your seat as a whole new world of promise came into view. As MTV and Star Wars dominated an ever-growing portion of the national psyche, kids placed their aspirations for a better world into media and entertainment. No one thought the media would renege on its unspoken promise and betray the national trust. Back then, the afternoon special starring a bulimic teenager seemed like a public service message about the rise of eating disorders, not the harbinger of a national identity crisis on the horizon. This was a time when the media knew its social responsibility to culture and society, when media celebrity meant being a role model to a new generation and MTV really did think it was changing the world. It's not that the media is less powerful--although that influence is no longer the purview of a handful of venerable institutions--but that the onus of building a better world has morphed into the need for immediate impact. When the goal is numbers and influence, nobody cares anymore what happens to the individuals who consume the media. Far from the heady but seemingly innocuous years of media forging a new frontier, now everyone is a consumer charged with protecting themselves. And with parents still awash in the old media ethic, that leaves children even more vulnerable to this brave, unforgiving, new world.

With no one protecting kids from media influence, it might be worth reviewing some child psychology to understand what the media uses to exploit children’s vulnerabilities.  The development of self-worth and identity goes through several stages, but one thing remains fairly constant: an absolute belief that they are the center of the world. Perhaps becoming an adult means fully realizing how false this is.  For children this is not a character flaw--as many overwrought parents are wont to believe--but an interesting psychological reality of modern life. It doesn't mean children think they are all powerful or that the narcissism makes them king of the world. Instead, it is a temporary solution to understand confusing events around them. Children understand the facts of the world long before they have emotional comprehension or a sense of personal identity. When kids don't have the tools to take something in, they almost magically believe they caused the events around them to happen and confuse their emotions with personal responsibility. Think of a child witnessing parents arguing. All kids think that they did something to cause the fight to happen: the emotions and context are too confusing. An adult would react emotionally but see that confusing feelings cannot cause something to happen. But that's much too sophisticated for a children, even for adolescents. And there is no amount of reasoning that would help a child to believe otherwise: call it the shared delusion of childhood. This means that, for a critical period of their lives, children determine their place in the world, i.e.  their identity and self-worth, exclusively from the world around them. If that world is predominantly peaceful and pleasant, the child has little to worry about. The more a child's life is complicated, confusing or worse, the development of that self-worth is marred by, for lack of a better term, "badness." Parenting manuals have distorted this fact of development into a backlash against discipline. Children still need rules and consequences and lots of them, but they also need consistency and praise. They need to hear through words and action regular reinforcement of their value and place in the world. By action, I mean the way parents, family and friends live their lives. Emotional maturity will follow.

With this background, it's easier to see why many children are at risk. Some kids will have the support system of family, friends and school that insulates them enough from the media to develop identity and self-worth influenced but not dominated by the culture of thinness. But what about the kids who have instability at home or live in a community consumed with thinness or take in too much "badness" in their lives or even just have parents who are unaware of the power of the media? For the vulnerable kids--not a small minority--this social movement becomes not just a culture but a cult that reels a large group of children into its fold. The appeal of a set of rules to define identity, a definitive moral code of food and weight to separate good from bad and an obsessive mantra that blocks out the confusing emotions of childhood and adolescence is just too satisfying to pass up. Add in parents themselves focused on media and thinness as a way of life and peers already drinking the Kool Aid and it's easy to see why the society as a whole has a tough time seeing the way to create a healthy, positive self-image in kids these days. An epidemic of eating disorders is hard enough to imagine, but what about the media culture as a rite of passage, or worse a method of raising the next generation? A discussion of some options to counter these real possibilities will be the topic of the next post.