How Intensive Eating Disorder Treatment Can Be Both Life-Saving & Sometimes Disabling
Eating disorder treatment can be both life-saving and incapacitating. This is especially relevant for those who have interacted with services early on in their lives or on multiple occasions.
While denial and limited awareness can be an important part of the eating disorder to challenge, eating disorder treatment can sometimes unintentionally/intentionally reinforce the idea that individuals are incapable of interpreting reality, regulating themselves, or able to trust their own thoughts and motivations.
A critical part of healing involves strengthening a sense of self-capacity, trust with oneself and others, as well as healthy interdependence. Encouraging reflection and exploration in recovery differs from instilling constant questioning (this is especially relevant for individuals who may have experienced significant gaslighting in their lives.)
Eating disorder treatment can be a fundamental means for individuals to re-establish physical stability, basic patterns of nourishment, basic coping skills, and begin exploring deeper work.
However, the biggest losses that occur with an eating disorder rarely have anything to do with weight or physical health. Similarly, the biggest gains in recovery are often those that are not easily measured.
Because of the time limited, artificial environment, and other systemic limitations on/barriers to intensive eating disorder treatment settings and practices, the majority of healing work will occur outside of highly structured settings.
Because of this, it is important that we expand community services and develop stepped-levels of care that support people to be in their own environment, autonomous, and self-directed.
Beyond this, it's critical we set individuals up to feel competent, capable, autonomous, and self-directed (through whatever setting we encounter them in.)
