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Chronic Eating Disorders in Therapy: Clinical Stories Using Family Systems and Psychoanalytic Approaches
Author(s) -
Dare Christopher
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-6427
pISSN - 0163-4445
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6427.00055
Subject(s) - family therapy , psychotherapist , psychoanalytic theory , eating disorders , context (archaeology) , metaphor , psychology , evocation , institution , anorexia nervosa , clinical psychology , sociology , history , social science , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , anthropology
This paper presents three pieces of work, all focused around a person presenting with a long history of disordered eating patterns. One treatment was a couple therapy, one a family plus individual therapy and the third a purely individual therapy. The three different psychotherapies demonstrate an approach which uses psychoanalytic as well as family therapy thinking and techniques. The material is offered to show examples of the clinical practice within which individual and couple or family therapy constitute a range of psychotherapeutic responses to people and, in particular, to people with eating disorders. The context of the therapy is described in some detail as it accounts for many features of the treatments, for example, that they are justified within the institution by having been subject to empirical investigation. A metaphor, that of the medieval castle, is offered as an evocation of the experience of the person that is relevant in the practice of both individual and family therapy.