SPT-Fall2014

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find that particular food again and again so that we can consume enough calories to stay alive. Have you ever wondered why every time you turn onto the street where your favourite coffee shop is you begin to think about the amazing brownie they make before you even remember the shop is nearby? You can thank dopamine and your brain for remembering the previous good experience before you have even noticed where you are. Some types of foods give more of a dopamine release then others. Carbohydrate laden foods that release high amounts of simple sugars such as sucrose enable us to release higher amounts of dopamine than other food stuffs. Unfortunately, we can’t trick this pathway with other things that taste sweet, it’s only sucrose or glucose with the calories they contain that do this job; hence, artificial sweeteners don’t hit the same ‘oh that tastes good’ spot. One thing that is remarkable about sugar consumption is that in opposition to other food stuffs, the more we consume sugar, the more sustained the dopamine release in the brain is. Combine it with salt and fat and we get an even more pronounced impact. The activation of these dopamine pathways sets up an addictive quality to these food types as it uses the same reward system (to a lesser amount) as serious drugs of addiction (Davis, 2013). Coupled with dopamine release, glucose helps to facilitate the amino acid tryptophan across the blood brain barrier. Tryptophan is the pre-cursor to serotonin, so more in the brain helps to stabilise a depressive mood. This mood lift is only short lived; the neurotransmitters quickly fade and the blood glucose will drop making us look for another hit of sweet, sugary goodness. Reaching for that second piece of cake is wrapped up in your neurotransmitters and glucose levels telling you it is a good thing to do. Therefore, the foods of choice for binging are often refined sugary foods sometimes coupled with fat and salt that increase the feel good neurotransmitter release. I have had clients who have tried to binge on salads and have reported that it just wasn’t satisfying or didn’t help as much for emotional regulation. In this physiological capacity, binging becomes a self-medicating action against low mood and overwhelming feelings. It becomes a useful, albeit destructive, tool for someone who has no other tools to self-regulate emotional distress, low mood, or anxiety. Co-morbidity studies have shown that people with BED often have other psychiatric diagnoses such as anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Grilo, White, Barnes, & Masheb, 2012, 2013). From a clinical point of view this gives us quite important information to conceptualise our client’s process of binge eating behaviour. Being aware that it is a physiological selfregulation technique means that firstly, we must help our clients to identify what they are medicating against, whether it is negative affect or another condition such as depression or trauma. Secondly, I personally find that a good dose of psycho-education around these processes helps to reduce some of the shame that surrounds the behaviour, opening a window of opportunity to start engaging and looking at it in a more gentle way. I find if clients understand it is a valid way of raising their neurotransmitters, it gives them hope that there may be other ways of learning how to self-regulate and that looking at the story underneath may bring real hope for change. I also find that understanding these physiological processes puts it into perspective—it is not because someone has ‘poor willpower’ that he can’t stop his binging cycles. Food and nourishment is intimately wrapped up with our earliest relational experiences with our care givers. Food is never delivered to babies in a way that is devoid of relationship. Permission was granted to share client stories. Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 48
Food as an Expression of Our Early Attachment Relationships Food and nourishment are intimately wrapped up with our earliest relational experiences with our care givers. Food is never delivered to babies in a way that is devoid of relationship. Mamma (or other primary caregivers) is synonymous with food and also with love, comfort, warmth, safety, and meeting of other needs. If early beginnings were not so safe, food may become associated with terror, overwhelming feelings, and confusion of trying to regulate the mother’s feelings in hopes of connection. Both psychoanalytic and object relations theory have complex theories to examine eating behaviours and these early patterns. I prefer attachment theory as a way of understanding the impact of these formative years on later adult behaviour. Attachment theory states that babies will seek and try to maintain a close proximity to care-givers and that their experience of this relationship will become internalised as an internal working model, which they apply to other significant relationships in later life (Wallin, 2007). The not-sonice experiments by Harry Harlow on rhesus monkeys showed how comfort, attachment, and security were more important than milk alone with baby monkeys choosing a nice, warm, soft mother rather than a cold one that only provided food (Harlow, 1958). From this we can begin to understand that food is not our primary drive—comfort and safety are. Clinical research has shown that patients diagnosed with bulimia nervosa have been found to have a higher incidence of insecure attachment styles (Tetzlaff & Hilbert, 2014). If we extrapolate this into clinical practice it gives a few important points that can be incorporated into the psychotherapeutic relationship. The role of the therapist, no matter what orientation, in the beginning stages of therapy with a BED client, should focus on containment, creating safe boundaries, and fostering a secure attachment for the work to occur within. A strong-yet-nurturing container will eventually allow for the attachment anxiety to be expressed within the therapeutic dyad. This can then be challenged and worked with. In my experience, clients with BED often have a high need for a strong-yet-nurturing relationship that meets their oral needs before they are willing to really challenge their eating behaviours. There is a shadow side of this relational approach though. Breaks in the therapeutic relationship with the therapist may also become a trigger for binge eating episodes. This may occur if the therapist becomes ill, or has to cancel appointments, or go on holiday. It may also manifest if clients feel ‘missed’ by the therapist, they may increase binging behaviour instead of expressing their negative affect directly. This doesn’t mean these occurrences need to be avoided; in fact, these occurrences generally are the best opportunities for illumination and healing to happen if they are caught and discussed. I often take a long holiday, and periodically I go to another country where contact is very limited with my clients. In many cases, these prolonged breaks are both a trigger for my BED clients, as well as a helpful catalyst for change when I return as it becomes a here-and-now relational opportunity to work through issues of abandonment, misattunement, and attachment anxiety. Dissociation, Body Awareness, and Binge-Eating Dissociation occurs within the binge cycle (McShane & Zirke, 2008). There are a few theories around supporting this finding. The first theory is that binging provides a psychological defense mechanism to bring about dissociation to escape from the awareness of threatening stimuli and emotions. The second theory is that binging occurs because the person already possesses dissociative tendencies, culminating in a skewed awareness of self-image and body sensations so that he is more likely to exhibit lack of selfcontrol and awareness around food intake (Fuller-Tyszkiewicz & Mussap, 2008). In a study that looked at the personality traits of persons experiencing binging, the results found that many BED sufferers in the cohort possessed an inadequate ability to recognise emotional states and body sensations coupled with excessive feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, and insecurity due to their body size (Izydorczyk, 2013). The thing I find most interesting in these theories and findings is the concept of the lack of awareness of body sensations and the resultant Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 49
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