Anorexia is a borderline mental disorder. Like many other diseases, it can end in the death of the patient. The psychology of anorexia is quite simple, the disorder is well understood. Mostly young girls fall ill with them, and any psychotherapist will easily track the causes. Anorexia nervosa syndrome can be treated quite successfully, but only with an integrated approach. There is no magic pill; the root of the problem lies in the way of thinking and in the traumas of childhood and youth.
Description of the disorder
Anorexia is classified into several subspecies, however, each of them has common features. The patient refuses food in order to lose weight or has no appetite. At the same time, he constantly weighs himself, keeps a diary on the Internet, photographs his exhausted body - the psychology of anorexia qualifies such behavior as demonstrative. Usually young girls suffer from anorexia. But in psychiatry, there have been cases when the disorder was diagnosed in men, and even in pregnant women.
How to distinguish anorexia from a simple desire to be a slender person? Anorexics tend to reach unnaturally low numbers - for example, 30 or 35 kilograms. Such people subordinate their whole life and daily activities to one desire - to lose weight by any means. They do not care, due to which a decrease in the numbers on the scales will be achieved - due to muscle tissue or due to fat. Often, girls suffering from anorexia have other psychiatric diagnoses. This is an anxiety or depressive disorder, dysmorphophobia (dissatisfaction with their appearance), they are prone to drug dependence.
Anorexia often leads to protein-energy malnutrition, causing the patient to die. Death from anorexia is slow and painful - all body systems fail. Externally, a person with anorexia is an extreme degree of exhaustion and horrifies healthy people. However, patients with anorexia are proud of their thinness - they are characterized by demonstrative behavior, often they like the increased attention to their person.
Causes of Anorexia
Depending on the stage and concomitant diseases, treatment is prescribed. One symptom of anorexia nervosa can be distinguished, the most obvious - lack of appetite. The causes of the disorder are as follows:
- In psychology, there is such a thing as the theory of phobic avoidance of food. The girl wants to lose weight, it becomes her obsession. As a result, she develops anorexia, eventually ceases to feel hunger. In the absence of adequate complex treatment, death can occur.
- Disharmonic teenage crisis - often teenage girls suffer from a discrepancy between reality and their expectations from it. As a result, they lose their appetite, exhaustion develops, and other mental disorders manifest themselves in parallel. If the cause is a crisis, then you should find a good psychologist or psychotherapist to work with a teenager. In most cases, parallel drug therapy is needed.
- Personal factors - pedantic, neurotic personalities often try to achieve an ideal, from their point of view, figure. As a result, borderline disorder begins. As a rule, in this case, in parallel with anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, a neurotic condition can be diagnosed.
- Cultural factors - the desire to look as thin as possible, imitation of their own fictional ideal (celebrities, models, etc.). In this case, we can talk about dysmorphophobia, that is, dissatisfaction with one’s own body and appearance, which is accompanied by anorexia. In psychology, the cause of dissatisfaction with their own appearance is interpreted as a consequence of childhood or adolescent injuries. A person can bring himself to complete exhaustion only in order to correspond to some ghostly fictional ideals.
Varieties of Anorexia
As mentioned above, anorexia is rarely the only diagnosis. Very often, in parallel, the patient suffers from other disorders. From a psychological point of view, anorexia is classified as follows:
- Primary anorexia is diagnosed in children under 10-12 years old. As a rule, they lose their appetite for psychological reasons - conflicts in the family and at school, divorce of parents, death of a loved one or pet. Such injuries can leave a deep imprint in the children's psyche, even if the child does not recognize this. The worst thing a parent can do in this situation is to force-feed the baby. As a result, anorexia can take the form of behavior "contrary to" when the child closes in on himself and generally refuses to make contact with adults and psychologists.
- Anorexia nervosa syndrome, in which the patient loses 15-60 percent of body weight in a short period of time. Anorexia nervosa occurs in both adolescents and adults. Moreover, in some clinical cases, a person does not seek to lose weight, he simply loses his appetite due to trauma. Anorexia nervosa may not flow uniformly: acute periods give way to remission. During remission, the patient can return part of the body weight back, but after a while, relapse occurs again. In psychology, anorexia nervosa often goes hand in hand with a post-stress period, increased anxiety, depressive disorders, dysmorphophobia.
- Medicinal anorexia usually occurs unconsciously. As a result of taking certain medications, the patient loses his appetite and interest in food, his eating behavior changes imperceptibly for others and himself. With medicinal anorexia, it is usually quite simple to refuse to take medications, which have caused a loss of interest in food.
- A relatively rare type of eating disorder is male anorexia. The psychology of men is arranged differently than the female. Representatives of the stronger sex are not characterized by dysmorphophobia and the desire to lose weight. As a rule, male anorexia is caused by post-traumatic syndrome. Often, representatives of the stronger sex do not adequately reflect a decrease in appetite. Relatives and relatives begin to sound the alarm when a significant body weight has already been lost.
Bulimia and anorexia: differences and characteristics of therapy
If anorexia is an eating disorder in which a person loses his appetite, then bulimia is characterized by excessive absorption of food. Oddly enough, in patients with anorexia often symptoms are replaced by bulimia. Patients themselves call these behavioral changes a “breakdown”.
It happens like this: a girl starves herself with hunger, achieves the cherished figure on the scales. As a result, it “breaks down,” that is, a bulimic crisis occurs. At this time, patients can eat a huge amount of food - and not necessarily tasty. For example, a fragile girl can eat a loaf, a full pan of boiled rice, and drink two liters of sweet sparkling water. Of course, after a long hunger strike during a bulimic crisis, the body experiences a shock. Internal bleeding may begin, the patient may be hospitalized with intestinal obstruction. Many patients after bulimic crisis provoke vomiting in themselves, which leads to constant irritation of the esophagus.
Oddly enough, anorexia nervosa and bulimia are treated equally. It’s like two sides of the same coin: in both cases, psychotherapy with a competent specialist and the use of psychotropic drugs will help. In addition, if chronic diseases of the internal organs have begun, you will also have to undergo a course of therapy to restore the internal organs. At home, the signs of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are fairly simple to detect, but treatment will have to go to hospital. Patients with eating disorders are cunning and prone to lies - only experienced specialists in the hospital can provide real help.
Anorexia Medication: Symptoms and Therapy
Medicinal anorexia can be either intentional or not. Many young girls, in attempts to get rid of their appetite and lose weight, purchase drugs in pharmacies that are prohibited for free sale. These are some antidepressants and drugs for metabolism - to buy them you need a prescription from a doctor, but many unscrupulous pharmacies are engaged in their illegal sale. The use of such drugs contributes to a complete or partial loss of appetite, as a result of which the patient loses weight very quickly. Such drugs have many side effects, so young girls with this method of losing weight are at risk of acquiring many chronic diseases. If patients with eating disorders use antidepressants for weight loss, mental pathologies develop.
But it also happens that the patient is prescribed medications that promote loss of appetite. In this case, he is losing weight inadvertently. Without even wanting it, he can lose several kilograms a week. In this case, there is only one treatment - the cancellation of the drug, which provoked a loss of appetite. Lost weight will return quickly.
Anorexia nervosa: symptoms and treatment
How to recognize anorexia nervosa in humans:
- he is rapidly losing weight;
- in public, they can eat ordinary servings of food, but after a meal they are removed to the bath or toilet to get rid of what they eat;
- on the wrist can wear a red thread (on this basis, losing weight girls recognize each other);
- she is not shy about her thinness - on the contrary, she gets clothes of small sizes.
These symptoms are characteristic of those patients who lose weight intentionally. Anorexia nervosa in teens is characterized by demonstrative behavior - they like to have their own pages on social networks, they demonstrate their thinness, prefer open and tight clothes.
Anorexia nervosa can be unintentional - in this case, a person loses weight due to a simple lack of appetite. This phenomenon usually occurs after severe stress - the loss of a loved one, unrequited love, betrayal of a friend, etc.
In both the first and second cases, anorexia nervosa will have the same treatment - this is psychotherapy and antidepressants, and if necessary, antipsychotics and tranquilizers. It is important to ensure that the patient always takes the necessary dose of drugs. If we are talking about intentional anorexia, then such patients often lie to relatives that they want to get better and throw the tablets into the trash in secret from loved ones. In this case, only hospitalization in a clinic can help.
Anorexia in both men and young children
Men and young children also sometimes rapidly lose weight. Most often, this is a consequence of experienced mental trauma. As a rule, this category of patients is quickly recovering, as they are not intentionally losing weight. The psychological aspects of anorexia in men are not obsessed with appearance (dysmorphophobia), nor the desire for ideal. As a rule, men lose their appetite due to problems at work and at home, because of a feeling of bankruptcy.
Both in children and in men, weight returns to normal quickly, the main thing is to identify the main problem. The psychology of anorexia in children is often primary, subsequently during the course of life there may be exacerbations. a competent psychotherapist will be able to quickly identify the cause of loss of appetite and work it out with the patient. Usually you do not even have to resort to pharmacological therapy.
Anorexia in pregnant women
Anorexia is relatively rare in pregnant women. In the most important nine months, they give up meals, motivating it with a fear of getting better and not being attractive. If ordinary patients with anorexia slowly kill only themselves, then pregnant women will kill themselves and the fetus. During the period of intrauterine development, the baby should receive the whole complex of vitamins and minerals, otherwise a miscarriage, premature birth, and deviations in the future development of the child may occur.
The problem of anorexia during pregnancy is the inability to take psychotropic drugs, because they can affect the development of the fetus negatively. However, if the mother’s life is at stake, then she can be forcibly hospitalized in a specialized clinic.
Drankorexia is a dangerous subspecies of the disorder
Drankorexia is a rare type of eating disorder in which a patient refuses food in favor of alcoholic beverages. In this case, patients carefully calculate the calorie content of the daily diet, so as not to gain weight. They take into account calories from alcohol, and in order not to exceed the daily calorie intake, they refuse food.
Needless to say, such an approach is detrimental to internal organs and health in general? When drinking alcohol on an empty stomach, the pancreas and liver suffer primarily. Patients do not look beautiful (as they want) - they look haggard, tormented by deeply sick people. If the patient does not understand the importance of therapy and deceives his loved ones, there is only one way out - forced hospitalization in IPA.
Modern methods of treating anorexia
Anorexia is considered one of the simplest pathologies in psychology. Anorexia treatment is possible - many patients achieve prolonged remission. However, it should be comprehensive and be monitored by a doctor. If there is an opportunity to be treated in a hospital, you can not refuse. Anorexia patients are prone to lies, which relatives are often unable to recognize due to bias.
The treatment methods for eating disorders are as follows:
- group psychotherapy;
- individual psychotherapy;
- conversations with a nutritionist about the role of good nutrition and the consequences of malnutrition;
- taking old-generation antidepressants (SSRIs help reduce appetite, which is unacceptable for patients with anorexia);
- taking tranquilizers and antipsychotics with psychotic behavior, increased anxiety and attempts to harm yourself.