CE
Notes
Dr. Bill
Gaultiere
Executive Director
Kathy Jo
Dennison and Linda Crist from Remuda Ranch offered an insightful
and helpful class for New Hope volunteers. They taught us how
to diagnose and be helpful to callers struggling with anorexia
or bulemia. When helping a woman (nine out of ten of people
with these disorders are women) with anorexia or bulemia we
need to be aware that they are hiding behind a wall of "I'm
fine. I'm okay. I have no problems." So it can be difficult
to diagnose the eating disorder. You can't see that the anorexic
woman looks gaunt and vastly underweight. The bulemic may not
tell you right way that she has a love, hate relationship with
food and is going crazy with compulisive binge-eating and purging
(through vomiting, laxative abuse, or over-exercising).
Commonly
these women are quite perfectionist. They are obsessed with
being ideal. They are starving for attention but the only way
they know to get attention is by looking attractive or performing
well.
They also struggle with all or nothing thinking. One cookie
becomes a whole bag of cookies and a gallon of ice cream. "I
blew it. I might as well just pig out," is the way the
thinking goes.
If you
realize that a caller may have a problem with food here are
a couple of helpful questions you can use to focus the conversation:
- "How
do you feel about your weight (or your body)?"
- "How
do you feel about your eating?"
- "What
do you feel before you eat? (she is probably using food to
stuff loneliness, anxiety, sadness, anger, or some other troubling
emotion)
- "What
would you do differently if felt thin enough? (she is probably
using the fact she feels fat as an excuse to avoid social
situations or other opportunities)
Women with
anorexia or bulemia need a referral. Use Overeaters Anonymous,
which has special groups for anorexics and bulemics. For serious
cases or so that the caller can talk to an expert on eating
disorders refer them to Remuda Ranch.
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