Eating Disorders - fieldi

42 Recovery Through Nutritional Counseling
Finally, Lisa agreed to try group therapy. She was embarrassed
initially and had difficulty even looking at anyone. But group therapy
was helpful in the end—she made friends and finally felt comfortable
talking about her problems. She is now totally recovered,
married, and has one child. She was happy to have been able to eat
normally throughout her pregnancy. Some foods may still feel frightening
to Lisa, but she is probably using good sense not to eat them.
For instance, she has no trouble eating an ice-cream cone, but she
will forego an ice-cream sundae because the sauce would be an
absolute waste of calories.
She is once again socially active, going to parties, out to dinner,
or any other place where food is served. She is no longer preoccupied
or worried about how to handle food.
Nutritional counseling played an important part in Lisa’s recovery,
which she reached only after much hard work. Having different people
involved in her treatment made her feel special. She felt she was
getting both individualized attention as well as working together
with her counselors as a family, where communication was open and
necessary. As she said: “It wasn’t like seeing three different people.
It was like seeing one Center.”
Case 2
Sue developed an eating disorder when she was seventeen and had
just moved back to the United States from Australia, where she and
her family had lived for a few years. Several events triggered the
onset: First, she went to a camp where she had a difficult time making
friends because of an accident that prevented her from taking
part in camp activities. Second, when she entered tenth grade she
did not fit in. Sue was not prepared to be a private-school student,
dressed in nice-looking clothes and uniforms. She felt as if she were
betraying her friends in Australia, who favored black and punk clothing.
In truth, Sue hadn’t wanted to leave Australia and didn’t try to
make friends after she moved. Third, within the next three months
her grandmother and great-uncle died, and Sue had been very close
to both. To Sue, life was out of control; the only way to get it under
control was to go on a diet. Thinness to her was a sign of being “all
together”—at least on the outside. She started out by following a