The Secret Language of Eating Disorders: How You Can Understand and Work to Cure Anorexia and Bulimia - Softcover

Claude-Pierre, Peggy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375750185 ISBN 13: 9780375750182

Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1998

Inhaltsangabe

"A provacative new analysis" (Newsweek) that offers a true path to healing eating disorders.

In this approachable look at the complex topic of eating disorders, Peggy Claude-Pierre examines the common misconceptions around anorexia and bulimia to discover the true causes and shares a groundbreaking path to healing.

"A gripping, often chilling view of what it's like to battle these horrific diseases."—Newsweek

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Peggy Claude-Pierre opened her outpatient practice specializing in eating disorders in 1988; the Montreaux Clinic began its residential inpatient program in 1993. Millions have been introduced to Claude-Pierre's gentle yet positive approach to the treatment of anorexia and bulimia, thanks to her appearances on 20/20 (the first show on her work won a Peabody Award for excellance) and Oprah. She consults with health professionals and government representatives in North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. She has been nominated for the Kiwanis World Service Medal and the Institute of Noetic Sciences Altruism Award. She is currently working with the Montreaux staff to create a teaching clinic to offer professional training to others who wish to use the Montyreaux approach. She lives and works in Victoria, Canada.

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Self-Help/Women's Health
Acclaim for Peggy Claude-Pierre's
The Secret Language of Eating Disorders
"Peggy Claude-Pierre has gone beyond the surface of eating disorders to discover their true causes and then present a valid and healing path. In this extremely constructive book, she offers incredible insights into the mind of the sufferer and the myths of eating disorders." --Keith J. Karren, Ph.D.,
Department Chair, Health Sciences,
Brigham Young University
"Peggy Claude-Pierre is a warrior--ferocious and relentless--whose work has rescued a decade of sufferers." --Edward Feller, M.D., F.A.C.P.,
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine,
Brown University School of Medicine
"Peggy Claude-Pierre has created a paradigm shift in the way we view and treat anorexia. Peggy has shifted the focus of care from that of controlling the symptoms of disordered eating to healing the negativity that would otherwise plague the individual for the rest of his or her life. I have developed the utmost respect for her, for I realize that she has translated the secret language of anorexia. Now it is up to us to use the knowledge she has revealed."
--Daniel J. Smith, M.D.
"Peggy Claude-Pierre's work begins where attachment to the limiting obstacles of theory end. She has brought back from the dead many young lives the world deemed hopeless. . . . There are many who possess the title of 'doctor' who have never come close to her incredible example of the selfless healer."
--Craig T. Pratt, M.D.,
Chief, Division of Addiction Medicine,
Grant-Riverside Methodist Hospital

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The Secret Language of Eating Disorders

How You Can Understand and Work to Cure Anorexia and BulimiaBy Peggy Claude-Pierre

Vintage Books USA

Copyright © 1997 Peggy Claude-Pierre
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780375750182

CHAPTER ONE

The Beginning of Montreux

My journey as a therapist for eating disorders seems, in retrospect, both planned and spontaneous. I knew from a young age that I would become a psychologist. The well-being of the world's children has always been my primary focus.

As a young woman, I was fortunate enough to have two incredible daughters. When they reached early adolescence, I resumed work toward an advanced degree in psychology at the university. I ended an incompatible marriage and moved to a new town to accelerate my studies, leaving behind a comfortable home for a small apartment. I had planned to have Kirsten, then fifteen, and Nicole, thirteen, join me, but Kirsten initially stayed behind to live with my parents and finish her school semester.

KIRSTEN

It was during those intervening months that Kirsten developed anorexia. One evening, my mother alerted me to the problem of my daughter's diminishing weight. Kirsten was studying until two or three in the morning, which was not unusual since she had always been a hardworking student. But my mother had noticed that Kirsten had large dark pools under her eyes, and she had lost a tremendous amount of weight in a short period of time. Hearing this, I asked Kirsten to join me.

When she walked off the plane, I was shocked to see that my daughter, who was five foot nine, now weighed less than a hundred pounds. She must have lost over twenty-five pounds while we had been apart. Going back to school was out of the question; she needed help--now. I told her, "Honey, you know you are staying with me."

She just looked back at me and said simply, "Yes, Mom, I know."

Under the surface, I was in a state of panic. I immediately took Kirsten to a doctor to check her electrolyte balance. He was the first in a procession of professionals. They all told me the same thing: Kirsten had anorexia and there was no cure for it. At best, an anorexic lived with it--that was called maintenance.

"How serious is it?" I asked. I knew the mortality rate was high. The doctor shook his head to indicate that Kirsten's prognosis was bleak.

I started reading everything I could about anorexia. I wanted to discover how I had failed this child. "What did I do wrong to make her hate herself so much?" I asked over and over again. Until I understood that, I would not know what the right help was. Everything I read told me that bad parenting, childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and a string of other "issues" were the cause.

Had our temporary separation caused Kirsten's illness? I felt remorse and extreme guilt. Naturally, as a single parent I assumed total blame for my daughter's illness, and the ensuing parade of psychiatrists did nothing to change my mind.

However, I balked at the psychiatrists' conclusion that Kirsten was being manipulative and selfish, that she was losing weight on purpose to get my attention. I had known this child all her life; I could not accept that she could change so radically from the kind, giving person I had always known her to be. Kirsten had always been unusually sensitive to and aware of other people's needs, in fact she was diligent about attending to them.

I asked my daughter to explain what she was thinking and feeling so I could understand how to help her. She told me that there seemed to be some other louder thought pattern in her head that made no logical sense. Yet Kirsten had always been a very logical child. It became obvious that she did not understand what was happening to her and was powerless to stop it. She said she felt she was going crazy. The medical doctors told me that she could not go on much longer in this manner.

I soon became aware that Kirsten felt terrible guilt about anything connected with food. Whenever I tried to persuade her to eat, she either refused, or tears would roll down her cheeks while she struggled to force the food down to please me. I remember taking her to a restaurant for a muffin. She ate it, but as we were leaving, I could tell she was feeling immense guilt about it. As we drove away I asked her, "Kirsten, I'm good enough for a muffin. What makes you think you're not good enough for a muffin?"

We stopped at a traffic light. She said, "Mom, see that light over there? You see that it's green. Logically, I know it's green, but my head tells me it's red, and I'm not allowed to go. That's the best analogy I can make for you about something that makes no sense to me. That's why I'm doing something so illogical."

She gave me similar clues about how her head operated. Later I realized that Kirsten's traffic-light analogy first made me understand that two minds were warring inside Kirsten's head. She was a determined person, and I kept trying to persuade her to fight against whatever force was barring her from eating in peace.

The first two months were the most frightening. Occasionally at night, while Kirsten was sleeping, I would go quietly into her bedroom to check on her. Under her blankets, she was skeletal. I would slowly replace the blankets so she would not know I had been there, and she would not be concerned about my worry for her. It was hard to believe that she could survive; she was down to about eighty-four pounds. Fear almost paralyzed me.

She told me sadly one night, "Mom, you've never lied to me in your life, so I'm going to listen to you, even though the pressure is more than I can bear sometimes. Everything in me tells me not to trust anybody or anything at this point, but I've always trusted you. I'll continue to trust you, whatever it takes." To this day, I know that's what brought her through, and I stand in awe of her incredible courage against the unbelievable negativity of her mind.

In retrospect, I realize that her decision to trust me unconditionally was the turning point. She kept going to the doctors because I asked her to. Over the next six months, I worked with her every day. She even came to my university classes with me; I was loath to let her out of my sight. Intuitively I knew she should not be alone; otherwise this negativity, whatever it was, would gain strength in her mind when she was by herself.

After every meal, she would talk to me about the illogical thought patterns she could not get out of her head. She was direct about how she felt. Sometimes, she would look at some minuscule bit of food on her plate and tell me, "Mom, this hurts so much. I shouldn't be eating it. I should be eating a quarter of it. That's all I deserve." She felt almost subhuman, less than the rest of us. She never knew why she was less deserving, but she just knew she was.

In the first three or four months of her illness, Kirsten was suicidal and frightened, as if eating had some great negative consequence. I talked to her constantly. She was gentle, never abusive. Together we tried to work it out. For every illogical word or act, I responded gently with a logical discussion of the reality of the situation.

She cut off her hair and dyed it purple. At the time I did not pay much attention because I saw it as a natural consequence of being an adolescent. She dressed in layers as though she were trying to arm herself to fight the world; her natural gentleness began seeping away. It was as if she were on a search for self as she kept trying on different modes of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1998
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0375750185
• ISBN 13: 9780375750182
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland