ABSTRACT
An eating disorder is not usually a phase, and it is not necessarily indicative of madness. It is quite maddening, granted, not only for the loved ones of the eating disordered person, but also for the person. It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of strength. A wish to prove that you need nothing, that you have no human hungers, which turns on itself and becomes a searing need for the hunger itself. It is an attempt to find an identity, but ultimately it strips you of any sense of yourself …
The quote from Marya Hornbacher’s personal memoir, Wasted, reflects the complicated psychological world experienced by the person with an eating disorder. Collectively, eating disorders are part of a spectrum of eating pathology that extends from severe self-starvation to the severe overconsumption of food.What makes eating disorders illnesses are not just the severe disturbances in eating behaviours but also the acute cognitive distress associated with the behaviours.This chapter provides an overview of the eating
disorders and discusses in detail appropriate forms of therapeutic support for this clinical population.
