ABSTRACT
Chapter Fourteen makes the case for a broad and inclusive approach to the “un-covery” treatment of eating disorders, exploring the ways in which psychodynamic and cognitive strategies can and need to work together. Cognitive modalities are often encouraged within the context of ‘self-help’, but self-help is the polar opposite of what the perseverant individual—whose entire psyche is organized around thinking by and for herself—actually needs. Working together to link cognitive interventions to specific emotional states helps contain and slow down the mind on the verge of a binge, and reframe experiences in thought and words before eating short-circuits the process. Insight meditation forms a unique psychic partnership with psychotherapy in making the connection between the physical and the emotional—the key to body and mind working together, interactively rather than interchangeably.
