Anorexia?

does anyone have any insights/experience with the treatment of anorexia?

Hi Andy,

Initially, allow me to say that I have never spoken to anyone (yet) with anorexia.

That said, in that situation I would look at it as the presenting problem and metamodel till I get to the real issue. You may have to use leverage (become assertive maybe even swear) to get to the real issue. Remember, the diagnosis part can take a long time. It depends on the actual person whether you get to the real issue inside minutes or hours. Once you have identified the real issue (the significant emotional event) by breaking the layers with metamodel questions and breaking their state whenever your sensory acuity tells you that they are running their pattern, you can then use a number of methods that will change their Internal Representation of that Significant Emotional Event. You may use Parts Integration (if the client keeps talking about feelings of being torn apart for example); you could use Change Personal History technique. Infact a mixture of both may be required. The use of metaphors with embedded commands can also be quite useful. At the end I would put the client in a trance, make a suggestion about how their life will now change for the better (or something similar).

The most important thing to remember Andy is to act confident in front of them. Don't let them talk to much (run their pattern) about their presenting issues. Two minutes tops and then break state (say something funny), metamodel and continue until you get to the cause.

You can do it Andy. Act ''AS IF'' you can and you will be able to get them to experience the ''breakthrough'' that will allow them to get better.

Anorexia is a major control issue. They control themselves, the people around them and their appitite until it reaches the point where due to lack of food their body and mind gets totally out of kilter and the imbalance continues. Once this happens you have both a physical as well and psychological cause.

I do have to say having treated anorexia if you do not have good knowledge of it I would leave it alone as the people who suffer from it can be highly manipulative of thier enviroment and everyone around them and the people trying to treat them.

Just my thoughts. Having said that if you want to go ahead you could look at Ternece Watts ''Secrets'' deepener (free on his website - just search for Terence Watts) and see if that gives an opening or try a 6 part reframe although I dont know if the part responsible will step up to the plate so to speak as its probably having too much fun controlling it all :-))

Cheers

Jan

many thanks for the input

Andy

I haven't treated anorexia but have over the years met several people and read about it. My hypnotherapy training suggested that the the control issues can be used therapeutically - that anorexia that is controlling her, stopping her body from getting the sustenance it needs and performing optimally - thus splitting the 'problem' from the client and inviting the client to join forces with you to fight the controlling anorexia. Metaphors around this idea might suggest themselves when you find out her interests and loves and hates (pre-anorexia).
Hope this is helpful

Nicola

Anorex's are dissassociating from their feelings and reality; hallucinating their beliefs all around them.

I would not suggest anyone deals with this problem unless they are experienced as once you get them to re-associate there can be a huge abreaction (of the unpleasant kind).

However, once this is achieved you can then deal with the problems that created the anorexia in the first place.

Would take waaay to long to cover all the issues regarding anorexia, but here are some pointers.

Anorexics often have a desired outcome attached to a condition/value that is unobtainable.

For example, he/she may say, construct the following, ''I'll be happy/in control of my life/whatever WHEN i have lost enough weight''

Recursion is built in, in that ''enough weight'' is measured by the feeling of happiness/being in control/whatever and a positive feedback loop is established whereby the anorexic-to-be loses weight in order to feel happy/etc, but this brings about the exact opposite, in that other people start reacting towards them in certain ways, so they become unhappier, and so they try to lose more weight, and so forth.

So, ask, what value is the loss of weight linked to?

Another issue forms in that when you put a body under stress for long periods the body produces higher levels of endorphins. Thus, when you feed them, the stop producing endorphins and so crash, and feel worse. So, in reality, force feeding an anorexic makes them feel physically ill (they aren`t imagining it).

From experience, anorexics tend to talk a lot about ''control issues'' - in reality, i think this is little more than a reflection of the pop psychology nonsense that is written about extensively in magazines aimed at the teenage girl market. Often, when you look at the relationship between the main parent and the anorexic, you will find some interesting issues there, and that is the place i start. Anorexia can be a game for the whole family and rearley is it about control or hunger.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Andrew Austin
alive in Chichester, West Sussex, UK

Http://www.23NLPeople.com

I have treated clients before with anorexia and still have currently.
Even if you address the actual eating issue the self esteem where it will have started needs to be address and the first time that they felt inferior or some kind of deep dis-ease with themselves has to be found.
On the actual eating issue, usually there is a huge indescibable feeling of self loathing and disgust after eating which then is too much and so they have to bring the food up.
The perception of themselves is down to how they are feeling at the time and you may want to research body dysmorphia a little to give you some more insight into it.
I was an anorexic, I deal with them in the bodybuilding field a lot as it is often an excuse to diet and yet still be seen to be doing something productive but most (usually women) areoften body dysmorphic and cant bear to be ''off season'' and they have to put on bodyfat during that period.
If I can help at all please contact me, I'm no expert but having had the condition I may be able to vocalise a bit more info.
Good luck, this can be long hard road but the fact you are even helping at all is marvellous and will be much appreciated.

Having dealt with an anorexic , let me tell you that it is a heartbreaking condition. I had a young lady with the same problem , and she used to tell me the tricks , that she got up to...to fool the Doctors, as every so often , she would be whizzed away , in to Hospital, for intensive treatment , under supervision. One of which , was to drink lots of water , before her daily weighing to pretend , that she was getting better.

Anorexia , is a mainly middle class condition , and affects , young girls , models , actresses and athletes .

My gut reaction is , that if you feel out of your depth , treating somebody like this, then you probably are !

If all the experienced Doctors and Psychiatrists , can't fix the girl ...what makes you think you can ?

Peter Walsh

a quick note to say thanks to all who have contributed, your comments have been noted. i am meeting with the girl tommorrow. it is the first time she has been out of hospital in a year!

Good luck - let us know how you go?

Hi all,VERY interesting and thanks.
I am meeting with a young lady who has asked me to 'help me change the anorexia?' Into what?I asked.I'll let you know how it goes. I'll take some of the Good Luck wishes if I may? X

If all the experienced Doctors and Psychiatrists , can't fix the girl ...what makes you think you can ?

Peter Walsh

I only just noticed this.

What a great line.

John

Now there sits a man with an open mind, you can feel the draft from here

What I did......was listen and yes there was a lot of interesting things going on with her. She said she was afraid to dream for example,to dream of being better.She could not face the reality of not having the dream.The emotion was too much for her to bare. However when she was leaving she dared to emote about Obama.YEH!!
I know one thing for sure.This is going to be softly, softly but with a bit of Provocative Therapy slipped in.
I believe SHE is going to fix her.I'm just gonna help. Anna x

I have been Anorectic in my teens and have afew ideas of how I would approach it if I ever had an anorectic client.

In my experience it has the same/very similar structure as OCD - the obsession is weight, the compulsion is weighing/measuring/fasting etc. The exit mechanism never kicks in, so thethe measures have to ratchet up and become more extreme - so the number of sit ups go up, the calories come down, the goal weights and measurements gets smaller - it all gets increasingly strict over time as they are NOT GETTING the payoff that they are trying to get.

There are HUGE issues with self worth, self esteem and self image - sound duh obvious but NLP has way better tools to deal with these things I think. Check the comparison sorting - it is usually along the lines of "Worst possible imagined self, compared to best possible others by Difference" under a heading along the lines of "Why I suck and deserve to die"

There is a HUGE "meaning" element tied into it. Food is not just food, it means stuff. When you don't eat it means things about you (you are strong, you are in control) when you eat it means stuff too "weak, failure, loser, Bad Person - stuff like that". Personally I felt "clean" when completely empty and light headed with hunger.... so food meant... yes, dirty, disgusting, foul etc.

They do NOT apply these rules to other peopple, only to themselves.

If you know KE I would map the crap outta it to find out the belief clusters going on: If I eat, then x happens and that means y. There will be a buttload all tangled together.

Elicit the Heirachy of values and find out where the "food thing" is on it, or whether there is ANYTHING higher and appeal to the higher value or try bumping the "food thing" value down.

In true anorexia there is Body Dismorphia - they cannot see what they really look like, they don't actually want to look like skeletons but don't see their appearance that way - they are trying to achieve a result that they think goes with a certain size, but the result never kicks in, so they keep upping the ante withut relaising that they are far in extreme of the original goal. This is distinctly different from many pro-ana lifestylists who idealise and deliberately seek out skeletal "thinspiration" and aspire to achieve it. I have frequented pro-ana sites and find the characteristics of actual 'classic' anorexia and the new wave of pro-ana to be quite different - there is a distinctly religious fervor to the pro-ana condition, a conscious deliberate choosing of an extreme lifestyle as opposed to an unknowing slip into compulsive behaviour.

Hope some of this helps.

Great post Mog, fully agree with your comments.

Wow Mog.Marvellous. Thank you so much for the info..Loads to all of this isn't there? BIG learning curve going on here. Anna x

Wow Mog.Marvellous. Thank you so much for the info..Loads to all of this isn't there? BIG learning curve going on here. Anna x

My pleasure - I've often thought I "should" use my experience to help people wiht anorexia, especially as I got over it myself without treatment (albeit in a less than optimally healthy fashion) but frankly am unlikely to ever get around to it in any formal capacity - so very pleased if this can help.

I thank you and although she doesn't know it yet,my client thanks you too.
All the very best,Anna X