SPT-Fall2014

subjective relationship between client
and therapist and between food and
body issues will permeate into the
relational space like the preverbal
elephants that sit in the room with us.
As they say, “healer, heal thyself.”
What is Binging and Where Does
It Come From?
To deter from the norm, first we must
try to define a normal diet and eating
behaviour, which is a near impossible
task! A normal diet is intricately
intertwined with our culture and
environment; what is normal for an
American is completely alien to
another culture such as the
Okinawans. To make matters more
complex, one just has to pick up any
nutrition research journal and within
minutes will be inundated with
contradictions and controversies
about what a normal, healthy diet is.
Contradictory messages are
everywhere: fat will make you fat, oh
no, new research says eating more fat
is better for you; eating more protein
makes you slim, but eating more
protein reduces your life expectancy;
margarine is better for you, whoops,
we’ve just realised it’s full of transfats
that increases the risk of heart
disease; fish makes you smarter, but
it’s full of mercury that will damage
your brain. Utterly confusing isn’t it?
Couple these contradictory research
findings with government incentives
to reduce the ‘obesity crisis’, with a
media culture that prizes skinny and
somewhat unattainable figures due to
wonders of photoshop, with a culture
that engages with ‘fat shaming’, and
a marketing explosion of countless
diet books and consumers are often
left completely bewildered around
how to eat in healthy ways. To make
matters worse, our brains are
designed to seek high-calorie, sweet
foods, and in developed countries we
are now surrounded by an
environment that makes access to
these foods all too commonplace
(Zheng & Berthoud, 2007).
In this sea of confusion we are left
with the question,
how do we define
what is a healthy
relationship and what
is an unhealthy
relationship with
food? Many
researchers are now
saying that binging is
a normal reaction to
an abnormal foodladen
environment;
our brains and genes
are wired this way so
it is important that we
do not end up
pathologising
everyone.
The major differentiating factor of
unhealthy versus healthy
relationships with food in the DSM-5
is the marked emotional distress that
the binging behaviour causes. I often
see a flavour of feelings of self-harm,
shame, and negative self-talk that
occur concomitantly with the binging
and that it is used to regulate
emotional states or as a form of
trance induction for dissociating
(Fuller-Tyszkiewicz & Mussap,
2008). I personally believe that
becoming more mindful of our
relationship with food, even if we
consider our relationship with it to be
‘normal’, can be a helpful and
illuminating process for all of us.
Binging as Self-Medication
A good place to start with
understanding binging is with the
physiology of the process.
Macromolecules and phytochemicals
in food can have a strong
physiological impact on our nervous
system lending food addictive
qualities. Consumption of any type of
food triggers dopamine release in the
reward centre of the brain. This is an
evolutionary mechanism that enables
us to experience the consumption of
food as a good experience, which
Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 47