Eating disorders are a growing concern nowadays and appear to be challenging to cope with or treat. Eating disorders are typically emotional health conditions in which an individual’s relationship to food or behaviors around food are unhealthy.
Many people suffer from eating disorders that are often linked to unpleasant and unwanted past life experiences. A negatory relationship to food might be developed in response to a traumatic memory of the past.
A large number of eating disorders can easily be controlled and cured with a little bit of therapeutic and mental support, along with care and love from people around them.
EMDR therapy has been found to be a significantly effective psychological intervention to help people with eating disorders by removing underlying root causes of distressing memories and emotions related to the issue.
This article will explore exactly what EMDR therapy is and how EMDR therapy can help with eating disorders. But before we get started with EMDR therapy, it’s important to know the basics of eating disorders a little bit more.
Table of contents
- What are eating disorders?
- Types of eating disorders
- Causes of eating disorders
- Complications of eating disorders
- The link between trauma and eating disorders
- What is EMDR therapy?
- How EMDR therapy can help people with eating disorders
- Final words
What are eating disorders?
Eating disorders are serious mental and behavioral conditions characterized by persistent disturbances in taking foods. Sometimes they might be severely affecting physical, social, and psychological functions.
In eating disorders, an individual develops a negative relationship to food, food intake, or body image. This negative relationship may develop in response to distressing memories and emotions of any past traumatic experience. Eating disorders are difficult to deal with but can be cured with proper treatment and support.
Types of eating disorders
There are various types of eating disorders, and each condition is different in its signs and symptoms from others. Lets’ find out what they are and how they are different from each other.
Anorexia nervosa – commonly known as anorexia, is a potentially life-threatening condition in which patients use extreme efforts to control their shape and weight that often noticeably interfere with their life activities and health.
People who have anorexia assume a distorted perception of shape and intense fear of gaining weight, resulting in abnormally low body weight.
Bulimia nervosa – commonly known as bulimia, is a serious eating disorder in which people feel a lack of control over their eating and have episodes of bingeing and purging.
And then, after the episodes, they feel guilty, ashamed, and anxious about being overweight and try to lose calories in an unhealthy way, such as forcibly vomiting, too much exercise, and taking laxatives.
Binge eating disorders – people with binge eating disorders eat too much food regularly due to a lack of control over their eating. They may eat more food than intended and even when they’re not hungry.
They may feel disgusted or ashamed after the episodes, but unlike anorexia and bulimia, they don’t try to compensate for their eating episodes, but they can try to hide their binge and may develop a habit of eating alone.
Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder – people with this condition avoid eating due to a lack of interest in foods. They don’t avoid eating for fear of gaining weight but may avoid foods for their sensory characteristics such as taste, color, smell, or texture, or sometimes they’re overconcerned about the consequences of eating, like fear of choking.
This condition can result in abnormally weight loss by failing to meet minimum daily nutrition requirements and can cause serious health issues.
Rumination disorder – rumination disorder is characterized by regurgitating food after eating repeatedly and persistently. It’s may not be intentional. It can result from malnutrition or any emotional conditions such as abnormal relationships and childhood neglect.
Causes of eating disorders
While eating disorders can be influenced by various factors, psychological and emotional components are found to be the most common and key factors in developing these issues. People who have had a traumatic experience in their life are much more likely to develop an eating disorder in comparison to those who have never had a traumatic experience.
The causative trauma of eating disorders can be either a single event or can involve many distressing events of the past.
Here’re some of the possible causes of eating disorders –
- Psychological and emotional components– certain psychological and emotional issues such as trauma and stress-related disorders (like PTSD) play a vital role in developing eating disorders.
- Genetics– some people may have genes that enhance their risk of developing an eating disorder.
- Biological factors– certain biological factors like changes in brain chemicals can play a significant role in developing an eating disorder.
- Environmental stressors– certain environmental factors such as economic unaffordability may also contribute to developing eating disorders.
Complications of eating disorders
While eating disorders can be cured using proven modern psychotherapies such as EMDR therapy, if left untreated, they may cause a wide range of complications in an individual’s life, and some of them may be life-threatening. The longer-lasting the eating disorder, the more likely to develop serious complications.
Therefore, it’s essential to get professional help and eliminate the underlying root causes of these issues with a proven treatment protocol and, of course, along with a lot of care and love from their family and friends.
When left untreated, eating disorders may get worse over time and lead to many complications such as:
- Serious health issues like malnutrition
- Anxiety and depression
- Issues with growth and development
- Suicidal thoughts and behaviors
- Substance abuse disorders like alcohol abuse or drug abuse
- Social and relationship issues
- School and work problems
- Death
The link between trauma and eating disorders
Although eating disorders may occur for a variety of reasons, most cases are found to be linked with some kinds of trauma of previous life experiences. But it’s necessarily not obvious in all cases. Sometimes, an individual may develop an eating disorder with a hidden trauma that’s not obvious to him/her, and the person remains completely unaware of it.
Trauma can occur in several forms and at any point in a person’s life, and it can flow from childhood. Experts have found that trauma affects the integrity of brain functions that modulate behavioral and thinking processes, such as body image perception and taste, which play a vital role in the psychopathology of eating disorders.
Here’s a list of some common forms of trauma, but not limited to –
- History of serious illness
- Witness a serious accident
- Witness or victim to community violence
- Physical assault or abuse
- Sexual assault or abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Experiencing terrorism, war, or political violence
- Experiencing a natural disaster
- Witnessing a criminal offense such as murder or rape
- Military trauma
- Neglect
- Traumatic grief or separation
How EMDR therapy can help people with eating disorders
When it comes to the treatment of eating disorders, EMDR therapy helps to address the underlying root causes of the conditions. It makes it possible for the patients to reprocess distressing memories in such a way they can get control over their emotions and begin to move forward with their lives.
The best part of EMDR counseling is that it doesn’t need talking in detail about the distressing events or retraumatizing the brain, or completing any homework between sessions that are often associated with other forms of psychotherapy.
EMDR trauma therapy allows the brain to resume its own natural healing process instead of focusing on changing thoughts, behaviors, and emotions resulting from distressing events.
EMDR for PTSD is carefully crafted to resolve unprocessed memories of trauma in the brain. It involves a three-layered therapeutic protocol to help recover people with trauma:
- Firstly, the past dysfunctional memories are processed, allowing the brain to form adaptive techniques.
- Secondly, internal and external triggers of current circumstances are targeted and desensitized.
- Thirdly, future scenarios are incorporated so that the patient can learn the required skills for positive future actions.
Once the underlying trauma is addressed, the compulsion to engage in eating disorder behaviors is automatically reduced. This transformation allows the patients to acquire more effective coping skills so that they can maintain their eating disorders recovery in the coming future.
However, EMDR therapy can be used alone or in combination with other associated therapies such as hypnotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) when needed to ensure a permanent cure for eating disorders.
Other conditions that can benefit from EMDR therapy
EMDR therapy can help both men and women of all age groups, including children and adults. Apart from eating disorders, EMDR therapy can be used as an effective treatment to address a wide range of conditions, including –
Trauma and stress-related problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks
- Depression and bipolar disorders
- Chronic illness and medical issues
- Dissociative disorders
- Pain
- Grief and loss
- Personality disorders
- Performance anxiety
- Sleep disturbances such as insomnia or delayed phase of sleep
- Sexual assault
- Violence and abuse
- Substance abuse and addiction
Conclusion
Suppose you or your loved one suffers from an eating disorder that a distressing experience or trauma has impacted. In that case, it’s crucial to consider taking specialized treatment that can help reduce symptoms and facilitate healing and recovery in a proven way.
Since EMDR therapy is a true mental health intervention, do not try any self EMDR or “do-it-yourself” pattern. Instead, it’s highly recommended to get professional help from a properly trained and licensed EMDR or mental health therapist so that he and she can develop the exact personalized treatment protocol for you. If you want to know how I can help you recover from your trauma, let’s talk at: junabrookes@gmail.com.