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oh hi, hey, hello! healing from an eating disorder is really hard work. unfortunately, sometimes healing from treatment is also really hard work. it's (beyond) time to think very, very seriously about the harms perpetuated IN some ED treatment. and change how things are done.
we have known for A LONG TIME that ED treatment can, at times, re-inscribe rigidity. Think about Helen Gremillion's book from 2003 exploring just that https://www.dukeupress.edu/feeding-anorexia
in 1994, Becky Thompson wrote about the harms inherent to the way we think, talk, and write about eating disorders in Black women https://www.amazon.com/Hunger-So-Wide-Deep-Multiracial/dp/0816624356
Boughtwood & Halse (2010) wrote about "resistance" (& micro resistance) & ways of improving care for eating disorders https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/casp.1016
recently, @psychanthro wrote about eating disorders & managed care in a fantastic book, Famished, that provides a lot of information about the machinery of ED treatment https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520303935/famished
these are just a few examples of some of the knowledge we have about how things could be done better in #EatingDisorders care. There are also countless "anecdotal" acknowledgments of the ways in which eating disorders treatment can be insufficient and even harmful.
so why do we keep doing it the way it's "always been done"? I suspect fear is a big part of it. we are afraid to try new things because we don't want people to die. which makes a lot of sense.
AND, I can't help but wonder: can we feel that fear, acknowledge it, and STILL work on making change? Reconsidering the "done thing"?
it may involve a total overhaul, and/or it may just involve being more accountable & transparent. collaborative. person-centered -- and not only person centered but centered on the person in their complexity and in their social location.
