Beat Bulimia - Bulimia Treatment

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

online conference transcript

Judith Asner, MSW is a bulimia treatment specialist and founded one of the first outpatient eating disorders treatment programs on the east coast.

David is the HealthyPlace.com moderator.

The people in blue are audience members.

David: Good evening everyone. I'm David Roberts. I'm the moderator for tonight's conference. I want to welcome everyone to HealthyPlace.com. I hope your day has gone well. Our conference tonight is entitled "Beat Bulimia, Bulimia Treatment". Our guest is eating disorders treatment specialist, Judith Asner, MSW.

In 1979, Judith Asner opened one of the first outpatient eating disorders treatment programs on the east coast. Ms. Asner has been trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and group psychotherapy.

She has presented papers on eating disorders at the American Group Psychotherapy Association and the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals. In addition to primarily treating bulimics, Ms. Asner also publishes an eating disorders newsletter.

Good Evening, Ms. Asner and welcome to HealthyPlace.com. We appreciate you being here tonight. Because each person in the audience may have a different level of understanding, can you please define bulimia, bulimia nervosa for us (bulimia definition). Then we'll quickly get into the details.

Judith: Bulimia (bulimia nervosa) is defined as periods of uncontrolled eating. The person eats anywhere up to 10,000 calories in a sitting. The binge eating is followed by purging behaviors, i.e.. vomiting, laxatives, exercise or sleep.

David: I think it's also important for everyone here tonight to know that you suffered from bulimia and it started over 30 years ago when you were 21. How did you develop it?

Judith: I developed "sudden onset bulimia", after the sudden death of a parent--a real trauma. But I certainly had some eating and body image issues all along.

David: This is back in the 1970's, when no one was really talking about eating disorders. Did you know what you had, and what was it like for you?

Judith: I thought I was awful, that I discovered the best and the worst behavior in the world. I had no idea what a disease it would become. Thank heavens for Jane Fonda because she spoke up about her experience with bulimia nervosa in 1980.

I lived in great anguish that someone would find out about me. Yet, I got so much positive reinforcement for being thin that it was all so confusing. There was so much praise for being thin from society, and men especially, that I wished I had discovered it sooner. I thought it would end all of my problems. Right!

David: You mentioned that you lived in great anguish that someone would find out about your having bulimia. Tell us how the disease progressed in you.

Judith: I began to get so into being thin, that I threw up several times a day. And I would binge on anything my heart desired, even on things I had deprived myself of before. It seemed like an answer to being just slightly overweight. And attention and beauty were a high! It is so sad to see the values that some people have about beauty.

David:Today though, it's still very difficult for someone with an eating disorder to talk about it. In fact, from what I've read, and from talking with bulimia sufferers, having bulimia nervosa is a real stigma; even worse than having anorexia.

Judith: I am sure it was a way to blunt emotion. Don't forget, I was dealing with parental loss. Bulimia is not a pretty disease. It does not bring admiration, as starving does. Starving is called "the moral superiority of anorexia nervosa." Being able to starve is an art. One feels so morally superior! Society admires starving women.

Not so with purging out of control women! There is no moral superiority in throwing up your food after stuffing yourself. But all in all, it is a way of avoiding feelings by focusing on food and thinness.

David: Here are a few audience questions, Judith:

dano: What is different between bulimia, and say, for instance, a person that eats and then 20 minutes later is really hungry and feels the need to eat again?

Judith: That person is responding to true hunger cues, I hope. With bulimia, one is unaware of one's true bodily needs and hungers. The satiety, or satisfaction signal, becomes disturbed during the course of the disease. The person who eats when hungry is responding to a real bodily cue, and the person who eats again is responding to hunger, not emotions. People with bulimia are not in tune with real hunger cues. The signals are disturbed by, or even before the disease.