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Monday 16 April 2012

Becoming a therapist

I understand what drives people to become therapists.  I am one of those overhelpful labrador types and, at times, become overwhelmed with an urge to help "fix" other people's problems.  This can be detrimental to both my personal wellbeing and that of the family.  It doesn't stop me trying.

One thing I have learnt on the Around the Dinner Table forum and at the patient hands of the Fairy Blogmother, is that my experience is not anyone else's experience and what worked for me/us as a family, may be harmful to another family.  What I always try to do is share that it is MY experience and not a blue print for treatment for anyone else.

In the strange twilight world of eating disorders, there is no one solution and no clear cut furrow to plough to help your loved recover.  The essential cornerstone of starting recovery is normalising nutrition, restoring the patient to a weight range that enables their body and brain to work at optimum function and guarding against further damage to internal organs (brain included) and other terrible physical problems that come alongside malnutrition.

I have mimbled before about clinicians becoming too bogged down in their own particular theories and I continue to rant on a regular basis that Hilde Bruche's work was based on clinicial observation - the plural of anecdote is not data and all that.

However, now and again, I come across a "therapist" whose views are so downright misguided and dangerous that I fear for her clients' wellbeing and recovery.

A note to patients and parents (and other clinicians), if you come across an eating disorders' specialist who writes a blog, as titled below - run, run, run, preferably executing a scorched earth policy behind you as you go, so nobody else gets subsumed by the Dementor.

Eating Disorder Tip #12 – Do You Know What Maternal Narcissism Is?”

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for using your wise voice to shed light on antiquated harmful therapies. I get many requests from parents around the world asking about who to take their child to. This is a delicate dance with ethical considerations. I keep a list of those I highly recommend and I like having a list of those to steer folks away from. Though I hold myself to the standard of not recommending one over another I will simply state that if it were me in community X I would go to "therapist A". But when there is someone so egregious as this one fixated on maternal narcissism I do make exceptions and steer them toward someone/anyone else.

    Thank you for all you do Charlotte!
    Becky Henry
    Hope Network, LLC

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