Eating Disorders - Pulling Knowledge Together - Carrie Arnold, Kathryn Hansen and Marya Hornbacher

Several people who’ve been in recovery for quite some time have thought and written about eating disorders (and co-morbidities), including me (here in my blog), from a variety of perspectives and have taken the time to consider and then share what we’ve learned that apparently made a difference.  

For the purposes of this post,  I’m specifically thinking of Carrie Arnold, Kathryn Hansen, and Marya Hornbacher. 

Kathryn Hansen, Carrie Arnold and now Marya Hornbacher with her work in progress have taken/are taking this discussion to the next level.  I know there are many others who have written memoirs on this subject; yet I am focusing on these women because their work is taking our knowledge of eating disorders to the next phase of understanding what's going on in our brains and possibly why; how we think and why.  They are/will be sharing their knowledge in an easy, conversational style to help those of us who are not scientists understand scientific concepts and developments.

Their work is important because until as recently as 2010, prominent people in the field of eating disorders were lamenting that new knowledge about eating disorders could take years and years to reach the eyes and ears of those who can help make a difference, particularly in residential treatment centers, in doctors' and therapists' offices and in homes where parents and other family members are employing the latest thinking and techniques to help their family members get going on recovery.  

The electronic media is serving to speed up this process.

Few are familiar with Kathryn Hansen’s book Brain Over Binge, Camellia Publishing, 2011, possibly because of the concept of the “tipping point" made so popular by Malcolm Gladwell in his book,  The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference first published by Little Brown in 2000.   Since she has now developed a workbook to accompany the book, perhaps her ideas are catching on.   Kathryn's work preceded much of the literature about the brain and eating disorders, some of which I learned in a course I took here at the University of Arizona and wrote about here on my blog.  Kathryn published her book in 2011.  Since then information has started to tumble forth and people, who are coming to understand better, are paying attention and advocating for change through legislation.  After I read her book, I wrote something of a review incorporating additional information and examined what she wrote here.   From the book cover, I pull the following:

After six years of chronic binging and purging, Kathryn Hansen stopped her eating disorder independently and abruptly, using one tool and one tool only:  the power of her own brain.  In Brain over Binge, Kathryn traces the course of her condition and describes in detail her unconventional approach to recovery.  In the process, she offers a much-needed alternative perspective to the canvas of eating disorder literature to help others struggling with any form of binge eating.

The mainstream view of bulimia holds that is is a disease that manifests as a means of coping with deep underlying emotional problems.  But the author persuasively argues that in her case, this philosophy actually encouraged more binge eating.  For her, it really was about the food.  Kathryn's candid account cuts through the confusion she experienced in traditional therapy and simplifies both the origins of bulimia and its cure in a fresh, intriguing, and always clear voice.

Brain over Binge is a brave book that will help many by delivering an informed and inspiring message of free will, self-reliance, and self control.

She provides more information about her personal recovery process at her website here.  Note again that her book was published in 2011 and since that time much, much more has been revealed about the brain and genetics.  However, her book offers a powerful perspective on how important and effective a change in behavior can be.

In summary, if you haven't found a way to overcome your bulimia or help your loved one overcome bulimia, take a look at this post here on my blog:  

Many people are hailing Carrie Arnold’s book, Decoding Anorexia: How Breakthroughs in Science Offer Hope for Eating Disorders, Routledge, 2013, as a major contribution to the understanding of eating disorders.

Following are two excerpts from the book's cover.  The first is written by Walter Kaye, MD, Professor of Psychology and Director, University of California, San Diego, Eating Disorder Research and Treatment Program.  To better understand the import of what he has to say about Carrie Arnold's achievement, you can read more about him and his outstanding dedication to his work here.   He writes, 

Carrie Arnold has done an outstanding job of translating complex and difficult research findings into understandable concepts.  This book should be an essential guide for individuals with eating disorders and their families who would like to know more about how brain processes contribute to eating disorder symptoms. 

  

 The second excerpt summarizes what one learns when one reads her book:

Decoding Anorexia is the first and only book to explain anorexia nervosa from a biological point of view.  Its clear, user-friendly descriptions of the genetics and neuroscience behind the disorder are paired with first person descriptions and personal narratives of what biological differences mean to sufferers.  Author Carrie Arnold, a trained scientist, science writer, and past sufferer of anorexia, speaks with clinicians, researchers, parents, other family members, and sufferers about the factors that make one vulnerable to anorexia, the neurochemistry behind the call of starvation, and why it's so hard to leave anorexia behind.  She also addresses how environment is still important and influences behaviors, the characteristics of people at high risk for developing anorexia nervosa, why anorexics find starvation 'rewarding', and why denial is such a salient feature, and how sufferers can overcome it.  

Note for the purposes of what I'm focusing on here: "how sufferers can overcome it."

Jennie Schaefer has written two of the books that are on my shelf:  Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too (2004) and Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life (2009).  From the book jacket review, 

Ultimately her two books reveal [again, the changing the behavior theme] that being fully recovered is not just about breaking free from destructive behaviors with food and having a healthy relationship with your body; it also means finding joy and peace in your life."  

I refer to Jennie Schaefer and her groundbreaking books that have helped countless people get on the path to recovery, because Schaefer also maintains a blog and has recently written that she spent quite a bit of time talking with author Marya Hornbacher.  The culmination of that conversation is Schaefer's three fascinating posts detailing what Hornbacher has been thinking since the publication of her first book, Wasted. 

To step back for a moment, Marya Hornbacher first came to everyone’s including my and my family member's attention when she published  Wasted:  A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia [1998 by Harper Collins].  The paperback followed shortly after that and arrived in our hands sometime in 2005 when my family member's therapist gave the book to her to read.  It's probably the most candid book I've ever read about eating disorders and yet the book was also hugely educational and helpful to me to try to comprehend the depths of my family member's profound illness that was so much stronger than mine had ever been.    I still highly recommend the book but always provide the caveat that it's not easy reading.

Marya Hornbacher went on to write Madness: A Bipolar Life; another candid memoir that revealed her struggles with the co-moribidity that  interfered with her recovery and her life.  The book includes helpful facts, websites, and contacts regarding the diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Now, according to the discussion she had with Schaefer, Hornbacher will be considering, among other things, "unsticking" and the importance of changing one’s behavior (one habit) and replacing it with another behavior in order to get into recovery.   Like Arnold, Hornbacher indicates in the interview that she will be spending quite a bit of time researching  material and working with people in order to write this next book.  

I look forward to the publication of her book and in the meantime I refer you to Jennie Schaefer's blog and these three links:
http://www.jennischaefer.com/blog/overcoming-adversity/wasted-full-recovery/
http://www.jennischaefer.com/blog/overcoming-adversity/take-medication-letting-go-mary-hornbacher/
http://www.jennischaefer.com/blog/overcoming-adversity/marya-strategies-unsticking-part-3-3/

Progress re Treatment of Eating Disorders?

[So excited to note here at the top of this post the March Against ED on September 30, 2014 in Washington, DC.  This event has united so many organizations intent on bringing attention to this biologically based illness.  For more information go to this link.   AND, watch the video!! ]

The September 2014 issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders (Volume 47, Issue 6) arrived in my mailbox yesterday.  As usual, I quickly browsed the contents.  I was so struck by the similarity of themes - meaning much work needs to be done - between the quote I provided in 2010 after attending the NEDA conference, and the Abstract of the first article, "The Therapeutic Process in Psychological Treatments for Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review" by Anne Brauhardt, Martina de Swaan, and Anja Hilbert, especially the Discussion, that I highlighted some of the information in the latter as another lead-in quote to my blog.

Much progress has been made in the understanding of the importance of Family Based Treatment (FBT), of the care and nutrition needs early on in treatment of the person with the eating disorder, of the integral part family dynamics (by family I mean the primary social environment of the person) plays as well as of the role of one's environment and especially of genetics and the understanding of the workings/treatment of the brain.

Yet because eating disorders remain one of the most difficult to treat of all brain based illnesses, so much more work needs to be done and all involved in the field including the organizations supporting the dissemination of information need to work together to help those diagnosed with this range of illnesses.  Currently, I believe there remains too much ignorance as well as an attitude of "this way is better than that way" and the only way the community is going to get around these hurdles is by keeping an open mind as well as staying current with the literature and accepting that perhaps their in many cases limited and self-serving approach is detrimental to helping people get into recovery.

I realize my statements may raise hackles yet I continue to note that the agendas (speakers and their topics) of some sessions still seem to ignore - discount? - what is happening in other areas.  I hope this situation will change.  I have added the blog created by Averil Hart's family to emphasize the importance of knowledge and change in the treatment of eating disorders.

Meanwhile, as I've noted in my header, I will be slowly reorganizing my blog and updating where I can to provide a useful resource for parents, especially parents of adults with eating disorders.  I am encouraged to see lately that more emphasis is being placed on how to treat adults and therefore what might work to help them become motivated to change - a wonderful and important development.