Before we can hope to answer the question posed by the title, initial, a caveat. Simply because the causes of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are so complicated and so personal, no single therapy is ideal for everyone.
Just as the path to ill health is individual, so need to be the remedy. In the finish, only a trained expert - following consultation - can produce a tailored treatment for you or a loved 1.
That mentioned, it is probable to do two issues: (1) say with some confidence which eating disorder remedies are really harmful, (two) which ones are likely to be safe and useful for most sufferers.
Outlining the initial category is certainly less complicated. Sadly, eating disorders are not just psychological issues, tragic as that would be. They have true, physical affects, occasionally long-lasting ones. That means, beyond delving into why somebody engages in this self-destructive behavior, it entails initially healing the physique.
Numerous traditionally trained physicians tend to rely heavily on drugs for that purpose.
To be positive, the doctors mean well and some of the drugs prescribed can be both safe and even vital. The body advantages from a small cautiously tailored assistance at instances. Any person who has suffered from a cold knows that.
But the physical effects of an consuming disorder ordinarily go far beyond the harm carried out by a temporary virus. That's in particular accurate when the condition is 1 of lengthy standing. So, the drugs prescribed are occasionally significantly more powerful, and for that reason might have significantly more serious side effects.
For example, a series of B vitamin shots can be extremely useful to somebody who has had seriously harmful consuming habits for a lengthy time. But such folks also tend to have underlying problems that trigger or contribute to the eating disorder, such as clinical depression. Anti-depressants have their location. But they can develop a dependency that is only slightly much less worrisome than the consuming disorder.
So, the moral is: be particularly careful about taking any single therapist's guidance about prescription drugs. Get a second or even a third opinion. Do not be afraid to ask probing questions. It's your wellness. Take an active role in restoring it.
The positive question is a little tougher to answer because, as we said at the outset, the causes of consuming disorders are so varied. But, within that selection, there are some patterns.
When past the initial stage of treating the physical elements, eating disorder treatments focus on counseling. You could believe that just talking can do no harm. But that depends, clearly, on the assistance given.
Fortunately, the most popular consuming disorder treatments involve some thing referred to as cognitive therapy. That's a fancy way of saying they focus on reducing self-destructive thoughts and instilling positive ones in their place. The theory is that leads to additional healthy behavior, and statistics back up that view.
Nothing could be safer than replacing dangerous (mis)perceptions with healthy ones.
Of course, the devil is in the particulars. How individual therapists do that can be practically as distinctive as the individual he or she treats. Most, but, will follow at least a couple of of the following guidelines:
Focus on altering underlying thoughts, not on superficial symptoms like weight or eating habits
Focus on exploring how shame so sometimes leads to those irrational perceptions
Encouraging realism about the past, present, and future
Encouraging self-acceptance
Luckily, it does not call for any expert expertise to evaluate the safety of these methods. Basic popular sense will do. How powerful they are depends, as often, on the level of the patient's commitment to becoming nicely. There is no safer eating disorder therapy than that.
