Psychotherapy in Eating Disorders

Abstract

This paper emphasizes that neither obesity nor severe malnutrition represents a uniform clinical psychiatric picture. The therapist must always pay attention to and integrate the various factors involved in eating disorders such as the underlying personality problems, resolution of the interactional conflicts within the family and correction of the abnormal nutritional states. The similarities and differences of both obesity and anorexic states are described. Primary or typical anorexia nervosa is differentiated from the atypical kinds. The importance of early developmental factors of how the child differentiates inner and outer stimuli, the appropriate or inappropriate responses to these and the manner in which these early experiences later affect somatic, social and psychological self concepts are discussed. Various parameters and modalities of treatment are described based on the author's long-term experiences with a large number of patients.