The Secret Language of Eating Disorders


Book Description

Reveals her groundbreaking theories on the cure for illnesses that current medicine treats with little success. She developed her unique insights into eating disorders through successfully treating her own 2 anorexic daughters and hundreds of acutely ill patients. She is convinced that eating disorders stem from a complex negative mindset which causes sufferers to feel an overwhelming sense of worthlessness that results in a process of self-destruction. She maintains that this mindset -- and the resulting eating disorder -- can be permanently reversed. She describes the origins of the negative mindset and the 5 stages of recovery from eating disorders. Illustrated.




Wasted


Book Description

Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia -- until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side -- and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.




Eating Disorders and Magical Control of the Body


Book Description

People with eating disorders often make desparate attempts to exert magical control over their bodies in response to the threats they experienced in relationships. Mary Levens takes the reader into the realm of magical thinking and its effect on ideas about eating and the body through a sensitive exploration of the images patients create in art therapy, in which themes of cannibalism constantly recur. Drawing on anthropology, religion and literature as well as psychoanalysis, she discusses the significance of these images and their implications for treatment of patients with eating disorders.




What's Eating You?


Book Description

A book about eating disorders for teenagers.




The Secret Life of an Anorexic


Book Description

In The Secret Life of an Anorexic, Kristen, the author of this memoir, shares her remarkably evocative, honest, and empowering story about her discovery and constant battle with Anorexia. She takes you through the early years of her life and the experiences that contributed to her illness. With the prodding of her friends, she decides to go to her university's counseling services to be evaluated. Even though doctors diagnose her with anorexia, she doesn't accept the reality. When she finally admits to herself that she has a problem, she spends the next couple years on a heart-wrenching journey to pull away from the grips of this nasty illness. In this epic novel about strength, loving yourself, and overcoming your past, Kristen shows the world that she and anyone else with this illness has the power to overcome it.




Gaining


Book Description

If you've ever suffered from an eating disorder-or cared for someone who is anorexic or bulimic-you may think you understand these illnesses. But do you really understand why they occur? Do you know what it takes to fully recover? Do you know how eating disorders affect life after recovery? Now, nearly three decades after she detailed her first battle with anorexia in Solitaire, Aimee Liu presents an emotionally powerful and poignant sequel that digs deep into the causes, cures, and consequences of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Aimee Liu believed she had conquered anorexia in her twenties. Then in her forties, when her life once again began spiraling out of control, she stopped eating. Liu realized the same forces that had caused her original eating disorder were still in play. She also noticed that other women she knew with histories of anorexia and bulimia seemed to share many of her personality traits and habits under stress-even decades after "recovery." Intrigued and concerned, Liu set out to learn who is susceptible to these disorders and why, and what it takes to overcome them once and for all. With GAINING, Liu shatters commonly held beliefs about eating disorders while assembling a puzzle that is as complex and fascinating as human identity itself. Through cutting-edge research and the stories of more than forty interview subjects, readers will discover that the tendency to develop anorexia or bulimia has little to do with culture, class, gender-or weight. Genetics, however, play a key role. So does temperament. So do anxiety, depression, and shame. Clearly, curing eating disorders involves more than good nutrition. Candidly recalling her own struggles, triumphs, and defeats, Aimee explores an array of promising and innovative new treatments, offers vital insights to anyone who has ever had an eating disorder, and shows parents how to help protect their children from ever developing one. Her book is sure to change the way we talk and think about eating disorders for years to come.




Diary of an Eating Disorder


Book Description

Chelsea Smith's journal entries help to chronicle her struggle to overcome anorexia and bulimia and give insights into what factors lead to her eating disorder, while her mother's entries tell how her family was struggling to come to terms with Chelsea's illness.




Ed Says U Said


Book Description

Explains the kind of communication problems that can happen between someone suffering from an eating disorder and their caretakers, physicians, and counselors.




Anorexia and Mimetic Desire


Book Description

René Girard shows that all desires are contagious—and the desire to be thin is no exception. In this compelling new book, Girard ties the anorexia epidemic to what he calls mimetic desire: a desire imitated from a model. Girard has long argued that, far from being spontaneous, our most intimate desires are copied from what we see around us. In a culture obsessed with thinness, the rise of eating disorders should be no surprise. When everyone is trying to slim down, Girard asks, how can we convince anorexic patients to have a healthy outlook on eating? Mixing theoretical sophistication with irreverent common sense, Girard denounces a “culture of anorexia” and takes apart the competitive impulse that fuels the game of conspicuous non-consumption. He shows that showing off a slim physique is not enough—the real aim is to be skinnier than one’s rivals. In the race to lose the most weight, the winners are bound to be thinner and thinner. Taken to extremes, this tendency to escalation can only lead to tragic results. Featuring a foreword by neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and an introductory essay by anthropologist Mark R. Anspach, the volume concludes with an illuminating conversation between René Girard, Mark R. Anspach, and Laurence Tacou.




Anorexia's Fallen Angel


Book Description

Anorexia's Fallen Angel contains all the ingredients of an irresistible read: a baffling disease that overwhelmingly afflicts the young and gifted, promises of a miracle cure, whistle-blowing insiders, and the personality cult surrounding a charismatic leader. Journalist Barbara McLintock tells the tale of Peggy Claude-Pierre, a mother with no professional training who claimed to cure eating disorders with unconditional love at the Montreux Clinic in Victoria, B.C. Breathless media coverage earned Claude-Pierre's clinic a worldwide reputation before allegations of force-feeding and patients being held against their will ultimately led to the clinic losing its license.