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Brain over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn't Work, and How I Recovered for Good
Brain over Binge provides both a gripping personal account and an informative scientific perspective on bulimia and binge eating disorder. The author, Kathryn Hansen, candidly shares her experience as a bulimic and her alternative approach to recovery. Brain over Binge is different than other eating disorder books which typically present binge eating and purging as symptoms of complex emotional and psychological problems. Kathryn disputes this mainstream idea and explains why traditional eating disorder therapy failed her and fails many. She explains how she came to understand her bulimia in a new way – as a function of her brain, and how she used the power of her brain to recover – quickly and permanently. Kathryn also sheds new light on eating disorder topics such as low self-esteem, poor body image, and dieting. Brain over Binge is a brave book that will help many by delivering an informed and inspiring message of free will, self-reliance, and self-control.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 328 reviews
January 19, 2016
OK. I am confused. The author has some good points, and I really liked how she questions conventional therapy. What I couldn’t handle was her “just stop” attitude. Really? REALLY?! Well, that’s one hell of a great idea, I’ve never thought of just stopping! Thanks for enlightening me.
Also, its repetitiveness is annoying.
Also, its repetitiveness is annoying.
September 28, 2016
If this book has helped or does help somebody, then great, but it also contains somewhere around, oh, a metric ton of terrible, even potentially dangerous, advice that is based in bad science, and I worry that for every person this book helps, it could be harming a hundred more. I'm not an expert in the functioning of the brain by any stretch (I sell tea for a living), but even I know that the author is way off in her interpretation of brain structures (if I were being less kind, I would say the author is way off in her regurgitation of Trimpey's interpretation of brain structures, since most of the ideas contained in this book seem to be block quotes with the word "bulimia" subbed in for "alcoholism", but I digress). What Hansen asserts as being distinct regions of the brain that battle each other for control are actually bizarre combinations of all sorts of different parts of the brain. For example, the "animal brain" she describes appears to correspond most closely with what is more commonly referred to as the "hindbrain" or "reptile brain", except the hindbrain does not contain the hypothalamus and is not "surrounded by...the cerebral cortex." Also, you cannot teach your hindbrain anything. It doesn't learn; it merely regulates. Learning is the forebrain's job. That's why the cerebral cortex, which, again, is not found in the hindbrain, is wrinkly in humans: Wrinkling something up allows you to pack more volume into less space, and in the case of human beings, having a more voluminous brain means we can store more information there. So, no, the author did not "teach" her "animal brain" to equate bingeing with survival. My guess as to what is more likely, she restricted calories to the point that her actual survival instincts piped up to say, "Yo! We need some calories and vitamins and minerals and stuff in here please!", but again, much like the author, I'm not an expert on the brain. When she carries on to say that the way she overcame her bulimia was not through any sort of therapeutic technique, but rather, by using her "human brain" to overpower the will of her "animal brain", what she may or may not realize is that SHE IS UTILIZING THERAPEUTIC TECHNIQUES IN SO DOING. Apologies for the all-caps, but the way the author undermines the value of therapy in treating eating disorders is absolutely appalling to me. Nobody should ever, EVER be discouraged from utilizing therapy in their efforts at becoming well in any area of their life; therapy is already stigmatized enough. But to get back to my point, in therapy, they teach you to challenge your "eating disorder voice", which is EXACTLY what the author is doing when she talks about using her "human brain" to outsmart her "animal brain". The terminology is all semantics; the theory remains the same. In addition to my qualms with the author discouraging people from seeking help from trained professionals, I also take issue with her implied acknowledgement that depression and anxiety are illnesses juxtaposed against her firm assertion that eating disorders are not. One cannot simply stop having an eating disorder, the same way that one cannot simply snap out of depression. Also, if eating disorders are not illnesses, then why did she respond so very well in the first place to her... wait, just wait... MEDICATION?! It was MEDICATION that kick-started her purported true recovery, and yet she claims her eating disorder was never an illness, merely gluttony and a lack of self-control. If both her claims that medication helped her overcome her episodes of bingeing and that eating disorders are not illnesses are true, then those facts stand in direct opposition to each other. I agree with Hansen on one point: I think the professional community (general practitioners, psychologists, psychotherapists, and the like) vastly undervalue the agency of the individual in one's own recovery process, and tend to subtly reinforce the notion that recovering from an eating disorder is an insurmountable task. People in recovery have their agency undermined at every turn and are generally told that trying to recover on one's own is an impossible task. Perhaps the task is only impossible because the people we perceive as being "the experts" keep telling us so. Absolutely, in recovering from an eating disorder, the burden is on you to do the work and make the hard choices that result in healthier actions, and in order to recover, one must take the personal responsibility for that. I believe that. What I do not believe is that recovery is a process better undertaken alone, because all of the professionals working in the field are misinformed and misguided. The truth is, not much is known about eating disorders, so sure, we may yet discover that current methods of treatment aren't the most effective. Hell, they might not even be good. But as of right now, the current methods of treatment are the best we've got, and nobody working in the field of medicine or psychology is striving to cause a person more damage, and to discourage any individual from seeking help, and to stigmatize those who already do so, is detrimental at best and dangerous at worst.
January 8, 2022
This year has been a tiring one, and certain habits I had thought I had been rid of seemed to rear their heads again, including certain questionable ones around food. Someone recommended this book saying it helped them. I haven't given it a try yet so I can't speak to how much success I'll have but the thing is what the author did is basically some of the skills you learn when you receive DBT. I just had not really thought about utilizing those skills, or wanted to to be honest.
The problem here seems to just be the author did not have therapists that made her feel like she had autonomy over her decisions, did not tailor therapy to actually address the behaviors she was seeking therapy for, and did not teach skills around eliminating compulsions/mindfulness to help monitor feelings without being overwhelmed by them. I think these are legitimate issues and the author would have done better with a therapy plan that utilized more DBT or even therapy to extinguish compulsions like those people with OCD received, which she cites in later chapters.
The thing is that while compartmentalizing your compulsions as part of your animal brain versus being "ana" or "mia" feels less cringeworthy, it still seems kind of dumb to me. I'm glad that way of framing things has helped the author but I don't think I can do it because my understanding of the brain doesn't lend itself to that framing. I do think I can come up with a framing that works for me.
The book felt a little long and repetitive because I don't think this really had to be a whole book. I also think that the framing of how the brain works was a little simplistic but I understand that that was just meant to be accessible and lend itself to allowing others to also frame their thinking in a way similar to the authors so they could utilize the same strategies. I just think some of the conjectures were not well founded, like the ones criticizing when people call their disorders "ana"and "mia", because the author isn't doing anything that much different.
I also don't think this can work well for everyone necessarily either. People have differing levels of executive control and impulse control. Some people may generally need to get to a better place emotionally before they can even want to recover. Even if the author thinks that she would have been able to stop binging even at her lowest point that doesn't mean everyone will be able to!
Mostly I think this book is useful for people who are concerned about stopping their binge eating or disordered eating behavior but who will also have the ability to dissociate from their compulsions and wait them out and exercise control over their cognitive process. And like with most behavior changes just changing your behavior is the harder part, I don't think this or anything else will be any sort of magic trick that necessarily makes it easier. I do think its important to feel like one can change ones behavior though and that even if you have mental illness that isn't an excuse for your behavior which seems to be what had been hindering a lot of the author's ability to recover.
Honestly though, you can probably skip the book because it really boils down to recognizing urges and feelings as separate from yourself, letting them happen and pass without acting on them.
The problem here seems to just be the author did not have therapists that made her feel like she had autonomy over her decisions, did not tailor therapy to actually address the behaviors she was seeking therapy for, and did not teach skills around eliminating compulsions/mindfulness to help monitor feelings without being overwhelmed by them. I think these are legitimate issues and the author would have done better with a therapy plan that utilized more DBT or even therapy to extinguish compulsions like those people with OCD received, which she cites in later chapters.
The thing is that while compartmentalizing your compulsions as part of your animal brain versus being "ana" or "mia" feels less cringeworthy, it still seems kind of dumb to me. I'm glad that way of framing things has helped the author but I don't think I can do it because my understanding of the brain doesn't lend itself to that framing. I do think I can come up with a framing that works for me.
The book felt a little long and repetitive because I don't think this really had to be a whole book. I also think that the framing of how the brain works was a little simplistic but I understand that that was just meant to be accessible and lend itself to allowing others to also frame their thinking in a way similar to the authors so they could utilize the same strategies. I just think some of the conjectures were not well founded, like the ones criticizing when people call their disorders "ana"and "mia", because the author isn't doing anything that much different.
I also don't think this can work well for everyone necessarily either. People have differing levels of executive control and impulse control. Some people may generally need to get to a better place emotionally before they can even want to recover. Even if the author thinks that she would have been able to stop binging even at her lowest point that doesn't mean everyone will be able to!
Mostly I think this book is useful for people who are concerned about stopping their binge eating or disordered eating behavior but who will also have the ability to dissociate from their compulsions and wait them out and exercise control over their cognitive process. And like with most behavior changes just changing your behavior is the harder part, I don't think this or anything else will be any sort of magic trick that necessarily makes it easier. I do think its important to feel like one can change ones behavior though and that even if you have mental illness that isn't an excuse for your behavior which seems to be what had been hindering a lot of the author's ability to recover.
Honestly though, you can probably skip the book because it really boils down to recognizing urges and feelings as separate from yourself, letting them happen and pass without acting on them.
October 11, 2016
I had this book on my wish list for a long time before buying, and now I am kicking myself for having done so. Even though the reviews were so great, I was put off by the anecdotal spin on the book, and didn't like the language of "animal brain" and "human brain" (even though I knew right away the technical terms for the parts of the brain she was referring to...I don't like the terms she uses). I am someone who prefers science-based health information and tends to read n=1 experiments with a "oh, interesting. I'll wait to learn more to see if there's something in it." However, with this book, there was no need because I recognised right away that she was not selling a miracle cure but a way of thinking about recovery that is worth trying, especially for those of us who are turned off by traditional therapies.
My story mirrors hers in many ways, including that first foray into therapy where you're like "why are we talking about my mum when I'm starving myself?" Unlike her, I never returned to therapy, but like her my anorexia transformed into binge eating. Although I quit purging long ago, I still binged on a regular enough basis that it interfered with my life, and my "food issues" have been a heavy burden for nearly 20 years. I want to shout my praises of this book over the rooftops because it is the ONLY thing that has worked for me. Other people may find that deep soul searching and focusing on "fixing" their relationship with food, their past, their present, and the way they cope with life is the answer. But for me, I needed to hear this. There is nothing broken about me. The bingeing started after a perfectly reasonable trigger (intense restriction during anorexia), and it continued because it became a habit. Just like any other habit, I (we) have the capacity to break it using my pre-frontal cortex. The urges to binge are the problem, and whatever the initial cause was, this matters less than how I can stop it. This book provides the tools to do so.
What I didn't expect from this book - besides its beautiful simplicity - was that she is so real about recovery. This is not the beautiful butterfly tale where she fixed her bingeing and changed her life. It is a tale of someone who fixed her bingeing and continued to have all of the challenges and complexities of life as a human being. Some may be disappointed and feel this isn't inspirational enough, but I personally found it far more attainable and just plain obvious. Waiting to stop bingeing while you 'fix' all of the things you believe are triggering it and learning to cope like some idealised "normal eater", only perpetuates the harmful belief that you are somehow a deficient/damaged human being. The author points out time and time again that you are not. Sure, there may be things about you that made you more prone to developing this problem in the first place, but that does not mean you are broken. It does not mean you are diseased. You have all the tools you need to quit, and the plasticity of your brain will help you form new neural connections, while the connections that developed around bingeing weaken.
My greatest hopes are that more women find this book, and that researchers take this strategy and study it further. There is a lot to be learned here, and what do we have to lose? We are not helping people with bulimia and BED very effectively, and this is a path to recovery that is so simple and takes advantage of all we've learned about the brain. Maybe we can stop many more people for believing they were broken for 20 years, and feeling like this was just their lot in life, like me. The fact that I didn't need to climb some proverbial psychological mountain and find inner peace to stop binge eating, and that I am not a broken human being, was exactly what I needed to hear. And the recovery you get may not make you a beautiful butterfly, but it also won't make you tamed house pet (one of her excellent analogies). There is no need to take it one day at a time once you've formed new connections in your brain and let the old ones atrophied. You do not need to carry the label of "recovering binge eater" for the rest of your life. You can use the past tense, and it doesn't need to be an ongoing struggle.
My story mirrors hers in many ways, including that first foray into therapy where you're like "why are we talking about my mum when I'm starving myself?" Unlike her, I never returned to therapy, but like her my anorexia transformed into binge eating. Although I quit purging long ago, I still binged on a regular enough basis that it interfered with my life, and my "food issues" have been a heavy burden for nearly 20 years. I want to shout my praises of this book over the rooftops because it is the ONLY thing that has worked for me. Other people may find that deep soul searching and focusing on "fixing" their relationship with food, their past, their present, and the way they cope with life is the answer. But for me, I needed to hear this. There is nothing broken about me. The bingeing started after a perfectly reasonable trigger (intense restriction during anorexia), and it continued because it became a habit. Just like any other habit, I (we) have the capacity to break it using my pre-frontal cortex. The urges to binge are the problem, and whatever the initial cause was, this matters less than how I can stop it. This book provides the tools to do so.
What I didn't expect from this book - besides its beautiful simplicity - was that she is so real about recovery. This is not the beautiful butterfly tale where she fixed her bingeing and changed her life. It is a tale of someone who fixed her bingeing and continued to have all of the challenges and complexities of life as a human being. Some may be disappointed and feel this isn't inspirational enough, but I personally found it far more attainable and just plain obvious. Waiting to stop bingeing while you 'fix' all of the things you believe are triggering it and learning to cope like some idealised "normal eater", only perpetuates the harmful belief that you are somehow a deficient/damaged human being. The author points out time and time again that you are not. Sure, there may be things about you that made you more prone to developing this problem in the first place, but that does not mean you are broken. It does not mean you are diseased. You have all the tools you need to quit, and the plasticity of your brain will help you form new neural connections, while the connections that developed around bingeing weaken.
My greatest hopes are that more women find this book, and that researchers take this strategy and study it further. There is a lot to be learned here, and what do we have to lose? We are not helping people with bulimia and BED very effectively, and this is a path to recovery that is so simple and takes advantage of all we've learned about the brain. Maybe we can stop many more people for believing they were broken for 20 years, and feeling like this was just their lot in life, like me. The fact that I didn't need to climb some proverbial psychological mountain and find inner peace to stop binge eating, and that I am not a broken human being, was exactly what I needed to hear. And the recovery you get may not make you a beautiful butterfly, but it also won't make you tamed house pet (one of her excellent analogies). There is no need to take it one day at a time once you've formed new connections in your brain and let the old ones atrophied. You do not need to carry the label of "recovering binge eater" for the rest of your life. You can use the past tense, and it doesn't need to be an ongoing struggle.
May 10, 2016
I don't really understand how an author gets a book about a health condition published when they admit in the prologue that they don't remember where most of their sources came from. What even is this
November 22, 2012
This author has hit the nail on the head. I have been searching my entire life for a way to stop binge eating. Therapy and counselling don't work. Restrictive diets don't work. It's all about the brain and how it processes information. Only someone who has experienced the onset of binge behaviour could have found this solution. The info in this book can be applied to any compulsive or addictive behaviour. I'm hoping that a month from now I will ten pounds lighter and binge free without counting calories and obsessing over exercise.
August 7, 2014
As others have said, this book isn't long but it could have been half as long. SO repetitive!!!!!
December 19, 2013
She has a new way to 'cure' bulimia, but I despised everytime she said 'just don't do it'. Self-indued vomit is way harder to stop, specially when it is simpler everytime you do so. Yeah, binge eating is annoying but she doesn't embrace the fact of free time. When you stop doing behaviours you have so much free time, even if you have friends, school, or work. That's one of the things that she didn't talk about, that a lot of people tend to fall back because it's the thing they do on their 'free time' (plus other times too). Also, she was like 'just stop, it is easy' and things like that and I just couldn't accept that. It made me feel like a huge failure because I've been in treatment for a whole year and before this, I tried to stop on my own, and I couldn't do it. I failed to stop binge eating everytime, hence why my mother made me go to therapy. She never threw up (good for her) so I think she doesn't understand completely what a relieve it means to do that action when you are so full of food that you can barely walk. Also, she had a fast metabolism, her weight adjusted 'fast' in my opinion. I've met people whose weight never went to "normal" that fast or that Topamax just didn't work. I'll give it 2 stars because; I like the fact of the primal irrational brain and that by knowing what he's asking, you can ignore it and because I spend time reading this... I expected more though.
August 9, 2018
This book needs an editor, a fact checker, and a much larger bibliography. Lots of regurgitation from other sources, pseudoscientific explanations, therapy naysaying (based on her own experience), and REPETITION. This point has been brought up already in reviews, but therapists actually use a similar approach to this. This whole book could be summed up in a single paragraph.
October 14, 2015
This book is poorly written and poorly organized. It is opinionated rambling at best. If you are looking for a very personal antidote of ONE person’s journey, this is it. To me that was not helpful. It was very boring to trudge through and I’ll admit that I only made it half way. I probably wouldn’t be so bitter if I hadn’t paid nearly $16 for this useless information.
June 14, 2016
after few hundreds pages , when the author finally get to the point of the book ,she only writes few sentences about it and then go back to talk about her life and struggle .
the point didn't really help , i think what did really help Kathryn was the years of going to therapists and trying a lot of things .
the point didn't really help , i think what did really help Kathryn was the years of going to therapists and trying a lot of things .
February 27, 2017
Life changing book. There's a lot of repetitive information, however the purpose the book was read for was met. And I feel like a new woman. Here's to continued recovery and education on all levels.
March 2, 2015
Kathryn Hansen's solution for recovering from bulimia or Binge Eating Disorder is both irritating and empowering in its simplicity: Just stop binge eating.
For those of us that are stuck in the cycles of destructive behavior, that doesn't seem like much of a life raft to throw us. And yet, it resonated with me. The core of Hansen's argument is that once we realize the urges to binge eat comes from a primal part of our brain and not the more advanced, decision-making part of our brain, we can disassociate with the urges, ignore them, and break the habit. We can also recognize that every single binge is a decision we had control over.
Hansen disagrees with the vast majority of ED therapy. Typical therapy seeks to find the root emotional cause of bingeing, whether it be anxiety, depression, or childhood trauma. This has become almost common knowledge, somehow. Eating disorders are "never about the food," we hear. But Hansen argues that they are in fact ONLY about the food. The binges arose as survival tactics from an initial diet (almost all bulimics began as restrictive dieters), then became hardwired through a powerful and overwhelming physical response system. Eating disorders have to do with the literal and physical synapses created in your brain that demand and reward binge eating. That's it.
This means we don't have to solve our psychological traumas before recovering. This means we don't have to rationalize with these urges or try to understand them or wonder what emotional hole they're really trying to fill. This also means that the only way to make them go away, literally THE only way, is to begin to say no. You have to stop the reward system in your brain. You have to break down the deeply rooted urge for something your body thinks it needs but actually doesn't. You have to simply will yourself in control of the binges, and the physical manifestation of the urges will break down in your brain.
She sites neural plasticity as both the reason for the disordered behavior (destructive habits take hold when the binge pattern is repeated), but also as your savior (these habits can be broken by changing your brain's response system to urges).
Her ultimate message, although perhaps a harsh reality check for those in the midst of a very very difficult time, is this: You are not diseased; you are not sick; you are making the decision to continue; you can choose to stop today, right now, and forever; it is undeniably hard, but the only way for it to get better it to choose to stop now.
I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 because I'm still skeptical to see how this advice plays out in my own life (and it's also a tad repetitive). I have heard amazing things about the effectiveness of this new mindset. This book has definitely empowered people and ended BED for many. But it seems to good to be true. It seems too simplistic. And so we'll see.
Wish me luck.
For those of us that are stuck in the cycles of destructive behavior, that doesn't seem like much of a life raft to throw us. And yet, it resonated with me. The core of Hansen's argument is that once we realize the urges to binge eat comes from a primal part of our brain and not the more advanced, decision-making part of our brain, we can disassociate with the urges, ignore them, and break the habit. We can also recognize that every single binge is a decision we had control over.
Hansen disagrees with the vast majority of ED therapy. Typical therapy seeks to find the root emotional cause of bingeing, whether it be anxiety, depression, or childhood trauma. This has become almost common knowledge, somehow. Eating disorders are "never about the food," we hear. But Hansen argues that they are in fact ONLY about the food. The binges arose as survival tactics from an initial diet (almost all bulimics began as restrictive dieters), then became hardwired through a powerful and overwhelming physical response system. Eating disorders have to do with the literal and physical synapses created in your brain that demand and reward binge eating. That's it.
This means we don't have to solve our psychological traumas before recovering. This means we don't have to rationalize with these urges or try to understand them or wonder what emotional hole they're really trying to fill. This also means that the only way to make them go away, literally THE only way, is to begin to say no. You have to stop the reward system in your brain. You have to break down the deeply rooted urge for something your body thinks it needs but actually doesn't. You have to simply will yourself in control of the binges, and the physical manifestation of the urges will break down in your brain.
She sites neural plasticity as both the reason for the disordered behavior (destructive habits take hold when the binge pattern is repeated), but also as your savior (these habits can be broken by changing your brain's response system to urges).
Her ultimate message, although perhaps a harsh reality check for those in the midst of a very very difficult time, is this: You are not diseased; you are not sick; you are making the decision to continue; you can choose to stop today, right now, and forever; it is undeniably hard, but the only way for it to get better it to choose to stop now.
I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 because I'm still skeptical to see how this advice plays out in my own life (and it's also a tad repetitive). I have heard amazing things about the effectiveness of this new mindset. This book has definitely empowered people and ended BED for many. But it seems to good to be true. It seems too simplistic. And so we'll see.
Wish me luck.
December 11, 2018
This is not some revolutionary account of how one woman recovered from her eating disorder, as the author would like to pretend it is. She says that conventional therapy didn't work and takes every opportunity possible to disparage it, but her miracle cure (and I'm saying miracle cure because they way she paints it, she read a book and was magically able to stop bingeing and purging) is literally just mindfulness. There's also a decent amount of something I learned in therapy called "ED separation". But this isn't some magical cure. This isn't even an unconventional way to recover from an ED. IT'S MINDFULNESS. Her main issue with "conventional therapy" seems to be (1) the focus on discovering a cause of an ED in order to recover and (2) the focus on CBT techniques. I happen to agree with her on both counts, as I have found neither of these things helpful in recovery. But some people DO find them helpful, and I think this book could be incredibly damaging to these individuals should they read it. Don't waste your time on this book. Pick up a book on mindfulness or better yet, one on acceptance and commitment therapy. Also, since she rejects the idea that an ED is a mental illness, she uses a lot of negative language to describe those with EDs: selfish, vain, disgusting... if you have an ED, you already think these things about yourself and hate yourself enough because of it, so the way the author discusses this is just not helpful. Don't read this book. Don't read this book. Don't read this book.
April 16, 2016
to be honest I didn't like it at all, I don't know why it has a high rate..
didn't enjoyed reading it ,not even a bit .
didn't enjoyed reading it ,not even a bit .
March 20, 2016
I took some notes about this book and published them in my Facebook page, so here they are as I've written them (with minor changes).
#1
First of all, this is going to be personal, so if you don’t want personal, just skip it.
The book addresses bulimia and binge eating disorder (BED). Now, I never was bulimic, but I was quasi-anorexic and I most definitely was a binge eater, afterwards.
In a way I can understand what the author says, because I stopped my binges abruptly more or less 4 months ago just because I wanted to, and did relapse only a couple of times, never so severely. BUT. I am only 4% in and this book is already irritating me a whole lot.
True, Hansen suggests consulting with a therapist if you have other issues, including severe personality disorders. I do have a (severe) personality disorder. But she also says this book is for people who want to recover, and that’s all very well, but then she says this is not going to be for people with suicidal thoughts. Why, pray, do people with suicidal thoughts not want to recover? First time I’ve heard it.
However. Hansen says she’s recovered from her bulimia and she has zero possibilities of relapsing. I’m very happy for her, though I’d want to meet her at her next life crisis.
She says she doesn’t agree with the common view that eating disorders (EDs) are fulfilling some emotional needs and have an underlying emotional cause. Well, I can certainly say that, personally, my ED has always had an underlying emotional cause and it has always fulfilled an emotional need. Let’s talk BED. Now I used to binge because I felt void and empty, or because I felt abandoned, or because I was hungry for love. Now you’ll say that’s because of my personality disorder, which of course is true, seen as my ED has always been secondary. However, this is how it was. And I would never, ever say I have zero possibility of relapse, because this is simply not true. I have always been known to say that you never truly recover from EDs, and that’s still my opinion.
I do agree with the author, however, when she says therapists just don’t teach you actual ways of quitting your binges. That’s been my experience, too.
I’ll keep reading and let you know my impressions – that is, if I feel like it, but I’ll see to it that I do.
#2
As I go on reading this book, I am feeling more and more ambivalent towards it. Some of the author’s ideas are preposterous (you can’t just snap out of it, it’s not only a question of willpower, otherwise almost all bulimics and binge eaters would be magically cured, since I think most of them want to recover) and she is arrogant in presenting them (what with all the brain talk – she’s not a neuroscientist for God’s sake!). On the other hand I think some of her ideas can be actually valid. For example, when she talks about how she stopped bingeing, she’s simply talking about mindfulness, even if she doesn’t realize it for a moment. She talks about what her thoughts were when she decided to try and stop bingeing, and she says she stayed in the moment and observed her thoughts, her urges, her cravings, everything that was passing through her mind. Well this is mindfulness. She stayed in the moment and allowed her thoughts to flow without judging them, being mindful of what her emotions and thoughts were. It is proved and well-known and universally acknowledged in psychiatry/psychotherapy that mindfulness helps with a lot of disorders, and not all of them strictly psychological. It is said it can also help ease chronic pain, for one. And it certainly helps ease psychological/psychiatric problems.
Then she talks about anorexia being a choice. Well, of course it is, you always choose not to eat at first, then just can’t stop your destructive behavior. The author’s sometimes stating the obvious, I’m afraid.
I do agree that you need a lot of willpower to overcome eating as well as other kinds of disorders, but I don’t think that’s just the end of it. Not for a single moment do I believe that’s the end of it.
I do agree that the urges to binge eat are a result of our animal instinct, at least partially. If we haven’t eaten or have dieted for a long time, it’s only natural for our brain and body to require large quantities of food – even though it was never like this for me. But as I said, I was actually fulfilling some emotional needs when binge eating.
The end of it can be that we’re just so very different from each other, and what can be true for me may not be as true for someone else, and vice versa. But I’ll have to keep reading to give a final judgment of the book, I’m not even 50% done yet.
#3
I have finished reading the book and have to admit it is interesting, in its own way. I do not agree with the arrogant tone with which it’s written, I do not agree with the zero relapse chance theory (although it seems to have worked for real for the author, who didn’t relapse even after her parents’ house was destroyed by hurricane Katrina, a huge life crisis). But some of the things the author says are true. Let me continue my analysis of the book.
The author says binges are a habit, or so she calls them, even though she’s really talking about an addiction, to be more exact. Now, of course binges are a habit, and of course they are an addiction. If you ever were, or if you are, bulimic or anyway a binge eater, you know as much perfectly well. Once you start bingeing, you just can’t stop, you will do it time and time again. But, since it is an addiction, what I find unbelievable in the author’s account of her recovery is that she never once mentions withdrawal symptoms. I definitely had them when I stopped bingeing. I used to shake very hard, have stomachache, be dizzy. And I never, ever ingested 8,000 calories in a sitting, as the author used to. So I find it difficult to believe that, if even I had withdrawal symptoms when my binges were so much smaller, she didn’t.
Then Hansen mentions something very interesting about bulimia and BED being egodystonic, while anorexia is egosyntonic. This is very true, in my view. When you binge you certainly don’t do so in order to get fat. On the contrary, you are ashamed of your binges because they are going to make you fat, so you purge if you have bulimia, or you simply cry if you have BED. Whilst in anorexia, you definitely want to be thinner and thinner, this is your goal and you diet in order to become so. And it’s never thin enough. Therefore Hansen says it is easier to recover from bulimia and BED because, being they egodystonic problems, your brain can actively fight them as they are not leading you where you want to be. This is not the case with anorexia, and that’s why it is incredibly more difficult to cure.
I also found very interesting that Hansen says you have to cure the behavior first, and the rest afterwards. This is actually the core of the book. Bulimia and BED are severe disorders that can be life-threatening, so of course you have to cure the behavior first. First thing is, you stop bingeing, only afterwards should you focus on the underlying emotional problems. Because yes, I still believe bulimia and BED have underlying emotional causes, even though another, concurrent cause is to be found in brain chemistry. However, it’s most important, to me, to cure the symptom before the cause, because the symptom/behavior can be life-threatening, as I said.
Finally, I agree with the author when she says society should not only raise awareness about EDs, but also educate on the dangers of extreme dieting. Some years ago we had Oliviero Toscani’s Nolita campaign, with the extremely skinny model who, if I remember correctly, eventually died from her anorexia. That was shocking, to see that extremely skinny model on big posters, but I think it was to the point. It’s like those campaigns that show the lungs of smokers to sensitize about the dangers of smoking. It’s shocking, but it conveys the message. I’m not saying I’m always for this kind of campaigns, sometimes they’re just excessive. What I want to say is that I too believe that we should warn about the dangers of extreme dieting, because it leads to anorexia and often, though not always, to bulimia or BED.
In the end, I found this book interesting enough, even though the author sometimes states the obvious and oftentimes she is full of herself. I don’t agree with everything she says, not at all, but I do believe some of her points are interesting enough. I don’t think everyone can just quit binge eating without ever relapsing, but it’s what I actually did, minus the no relapse part. That is to say, I did relapse a couple of times, but I did stop abruptly, as I said in the first part of these notes. Ultimately, I don’t think this is the right approach for everyone, but I think this book can be an interesting read, if you manage to overlook the very annoying parts. However, as the author herself says in the introduction, this is not for those with personality disorders. In that case, I add, the ED is only secondary to other kinds of problems most of the times, so you really need to address those other issues if you want to get rid of the ED once and for all. That said, you should still stop bingeing as a first step, because you don’t want to put your life at risk.
#1
First of all, this is going to be personal, so if you don’t want personal, just skip it.
The book addresses bulimia and binge eating disorder (BED). Now, I never was bulimic, but I was quasi-anorexic and I most definitely was a binge eater, afterwards.
In a way I can understand what the author says, because I stopped my binges abruptly more or less 4 months ago just because I wanted to, and did relapse only a couple of times, never so severely. BUT. I am only 4% in and this book is already irritating me a whole lot.
True, Hansen suggests consulting with a therapist if you have other issues, including severe personality disorders. I do have a (severe) personality disorder. But she also says this book is for people who want to recover, and that’s all very well, but then she says this is not going to be for people with suicidal thoughts. Why, pray, do people with suicidal thoughts not want to recover? First time I’ve heard it.
However. Hansen says she’s recovered from her bulimia and she has zero possibilities of relapsing. I’m very happy for her, though I’d want to meet her at her next life crisis.
She says she doesn’t agree with the common view that eating disorders (EDs) are fulfilling some emotional needs and have an underlying emotional cause. Well, I can certainly say that, personally, my ED has always had an underlying emotional cause and it has always fulfilled an emotional need. Let’s talk BED. Now I used to binge because I felt void and empty, or because I felt abandoned, or because I was hungry for love. Now you’ll say that’s because of my personality disorder, which of course is true, seen as my ED has always been secondary. However, this is how it was. And I would never, ever say I have zero possibility of relapse, because this is simply not true. I have always been known to say that you never truly recover from EDs, and that’s still my opinion.
I do agree with the author, however, when she says therapists just don’t teach you actual ways of quitting your binges. That’s been my experience, too.
I’ll keep reading and let you know my impressions – that is, if I feel like it, but I’ll see to it that I do.
#2
As I go on reading this book, I am feeling more and more ambivalent towards it. Some of the author’s ideas are preposterous (you can’t just snap out of it, it’s not only a question of willpower, otherwise almost all bulimics and binge eaters would be magically cured, since I think most of them want to recover) and she is arrogant in presenting them (what with all the brain talk – she’s not a neuroscientist for God’s sake!). On the other hand I think some of her ideas can be actually valid. For example, when she talks about how she stopped bingeing, she’s simply talking about mindfulness, even if she doesn’t realize it for a moment. She talks about what her thoughts were when she decided to try and stop bingeing, and she says she stayed in the moment and observed her thoughts, her urges, her cravings, everything that was passing through her mind. Well this is mindfulness. She stayed in the moment and allowed her thoughts to flow without judging them, being mindful of what her emotions and thoughts were. It is proved and well-known and universally acknowledged in psychiatry/psychotherapy that mindfulness helps with a lot of disorders, and not all of them strictly psychological. It is said it can also help ease chronic pain, for one. And it certainly helps ease psychological/psychiatric problems.
Then she talks about anorexia being a choice. Well, of course it is, you always choose not to eat at first, then just can’t stop your destructive behavior. The author’s sometimes stating the obvious, I’m afraid.
I do agree that you need a lot of willpower to overcome eating as well as other kinds of disorders, but I don’t think that’s just the end of it. Not for a single moment do I believe that’s the end of it.
I do agree that the urges to binge eat are a result of our animal instinct, at least partially. If we haven’t eaten or have dieted for a long time, it’s only natural for our brain and body to require large quantities of food – even though it was never like this for me. But as I said, I was actually fulfilling some emotional needs when binge eating.
The end of it can be that we’re just so very different from each other, and what can be true for me may not be as true for someone else, and vice versa. But I’ll have to keep reading to give a final judgment of the book, I’m not even 50% done yet.
#3
I have finished reading the book and have to admit it is interesting, in its own way. I do not agree with the arrogant tone with which it’s written, I do not agree with the zero relapse chance theory (although it seems to have worked for real for the author, who didn’t relapse even after her parents’ house was destroyed by hurricane Katrina, a huge life crisis). But some of the things the author says are true. Let me continue my analysis of the book.
The author says binges are a habit, or so she calls them, even though she’s really talking about an addiction, to be more exact. Now, of course binges are a habit, and of course they are an addiction. If you ever were, or if you are, bulimic or anyway a binge eater, you know as much perfectly well. Once you start bingeing, you just can’t stop, you will do it time and time again. But, since it is an addiction, what I find unbelievable in the author’s account of her recovery is that she never once mentions withdrawal symptoms. I definitely had them when I stopped bingeing. I used to shake very hard, have stomachache, be dizzy. And I never, ever ingested 8,000 calories in a sitting, as the author used to. So I find it difficult to believe that, if even I had withdrawal symptoms when my binges were so much smaller, she didn’t.
Then Hansen mentions something very interesting about bulimia and BED being egodystonic, while anorexia is egosyntonic. This is very true, in my view. When you binge you certainly don’t do so in order to get fat. On the contrary, you are ashamed of your binges because they are going to make you fat, so you purge if you have bulimia, or you simply cry if you have BED. Whilst in anorexia, you definitely want to be thinner and thinner, this is your goal and you diet in order to become so. And it’s never thin enough. Therefore Hansen says it is easier to recover from bulimia and BED because, being they egodystonic problems, your brain can actively fight them as they are not leading you where you want to be. This is not the case with anorexia, and that’s why it is incredibly more difficult to cure.
I also found very interesting that Hansen says you have to cure the behavior first, and the rest afterwards. This is actually the core of the book. Bulimia and BED are severe disorders that can be life-threatening, so of course you have to cure the behavior first. First thing is, you stop bingeing, only afterwards should you focus on the underlying emotional problems. Because yes, I still believe bulimia and BED have underlying emotional causes, even though another, concurrent cause is to be found in brain chemistry. However, it’s most important, to me, to cure the symptom before the cause, because the symptom/behavior can be life-threatening, as I said.
Finally, I agree with the author when she says society should not only raise awareness about EDs, but also educate on the dangers of extreme dieting. Some years ago we had Oliviero Toscani’s Nolita campaign, with the extremely skinny model who, if I remember correctly, eventually died from her anorexia. That was shocking, to see that extremely skinny model on big posters, but I think it was to the point. It’s like those campaigns that show the lungs of smokers to sensitize about the dangers of smoking. It’s shocking, but it conveys the message. I’m not saying I’m always for this kind of campaigns, sometimes they’re just excessive. What I want to say is that I too believe that we should warn about the dangers of extreme dieting, because it leads to anorexia and often, though not always, to bulimia or BED.
In the end, I found this book interesting enough, even though the author sometimes states the obvious and oftentimes she is full of herself. I don’t agree with everything she says, not at all, but I do believe some of her points are interesting enough. I don’t think everyone can just quit binge eating without ever relapsing, but it’s what I actually did, minus the no relapse part. That is to say, I did relapse a couple of times, but I did stop abruptly, as I said in the first part of these notes. Ultimately, I don’t think this is the right approach for everyone, but I think this book can be an interesting read, if you manage to overlook the very annoying parts. However, as the author herself says in the introduction, this is not for those with personality disorders. In that case, I add, the ED is only secondary to other kinds of problems most of the times, so you really need to address those other issues if you want to get rid of the ED once and for all. That said, you should still stop bingeing as a first step, because you don’t want to put your life at risk.
June 3, 2017
I read this book out of curiosity, after a friend who suffered from bulimia mentioned how it has helped her overcoming her eating disorder. Brain over Binge is the account of a woman who has suffered from bulimia for many years, tried both medication and therapy without lasting results, until she figured out how all it would take her to recover is a new understanding of what was happening in her brain when she felt the urge to binge.
Bulimia and binge eating are definitely serious topics - it's life consuming, health damaging and the mental strain is often immense. Many affected from it want to stop, yet they fail to get out of the vicious cycle that tells them to binge and then purge, which again leads to another urge to binge. What helped Kathryn Hansen was the following:
"Because the human brain houses your true self and your voluntary muscle movements, you - your true self - have ultimate control. In the case of bulimia, "it" cannot control whether or not the bulimic will open the refrigerator or drive to the nearest fast-food restaurant to binge."
Understanding that gave her a feeling of control and with that the power to resist the urges. Her idea is that our brain is split in two parts - the rational and conscious part and the "animal brain", which function is to make you eat in order to live. As she tried to diet, her animal brain felt alarmed and urged her to eat more and as she kept giving in to those urges, it became habit even long after her weight was restored. The solution was to be aware of the "animal brain", but then view it as neurological junk and not pay it any attention.
I thought her perception of therapy was very interesting. I have a background of psychology and eating disorders are something I intuitively approach from a scientific view, where they tell you that it's a disease like any other, with binge-eating being a symptom and underlying personal problems being the cause. But what is such a diagnosis to somebody who just wants to quit binge eating?
"Because of what I learned in therapy, I often confused what was recovery from bulimia with what was just life."
Hansen sees in binge eating the cause and not the symptom of a problem. Her therapists told her to work on her self-esteem, to become a happier and more balanced person. It makes sense, it's desirable, but it's something everyone has to work on to an extend and why make your Binge Eating Disorder dependent on how close you are to reaching a mental homeostasis, if that can take years to reach (if ever!).
It's an interesting thought and I felt like I did gain a new perspective on the topic. It is definitely aimed at people who suffer from a Binge Eating Disorder themselves and may be interesting to those who have not had success with conventional therapy.
Bulimia and binge eating are definitely serious topics - it's life consuming, health damaging and the mental strain is often immense. Many affected from it want to stop, yet they fail to get out of the vicious cycle that tells them to binge and then purge, which again leads to another urge to binge. What helped Kathryn Hansen was the following:
"Because the human brain houses your true self and your voluntary muscle movements, you - your true self - have ultimate control. In the case of bulimia, "it" cannot control whether or not the bulimic will open the refrigerator or drive to the nearest fast-food restaurant to binge."
Understanding that gave her a feeling of control and with that the power to resist the urges. Her idea is that our brain is split in two parts - the rational and conscious part and the "animal brain", which function is to make you eat in order to live. As she tried to diet, her animal brain felt alarmed and urged her to eat more and as she kept giving in to those urges, it became habit even long after her weight was restored. The solution was to be aware of the "animal brain", but then view it as neurological junk and not pay it any attention.
I thought her perception of therapy was very interesting. I have a background of psychology and eating disorders are something I intuitively approach from a scientific view, where they tell you that it's a disease like any other, with binge-eating being a symptom and underlying personal problems being the cause. But what is such a diagnosis to somebody who just wants to quit binge eating?
"Because of what I learned in therapy, I often confused what was recovery from bulimia with what was just life."
Hansen sees in binge eating the cause and not the symptom of a problem. Her therapists told her to work on her self-esteem, to become a happier and more balanced person. It makes sense, it's desirable, but it's something everyone has to work on to an extend and why make your Binge Eating Disorder dependent on how close you are to reaching a mental homeostasis, if that can take years to reach (if ever!).
It's an interesting thought and I felt like I did gain a new perspective on the topic. It is definitely aimed at people who suffer from a Binge Eating Disorder themselves and may be interesting to those who have not had success with conventional therapy.
April 11, 2019
This book rationalizes eating disorders, specifically bulimia and binge eating, and makes you realize that you ultimately have complete autonomy over your behavior. The author uses her personal anecdote to relay her struggles with bulimia (binge eating and purging through exercise) for many years throughout high school and college, to then come to the realization that nothing about her needed to be "fixed" in order to cure her bulimia. Traditional therapy made her feel that her depression, anxiety, and other life stressors were the triggers in her binge eating, but in reality it all came down to a simple biological need.
She started binge eating when she started restricting her food intake (in a futile attempt to diet), which in turn caused a negative cycle of restricting, bingeing, and purging through excessive hours of exercise. This cycle consumed her life for years, and for a long time she believed that there was something mentally wrong with her. That she needed to fix the problems in her life before she could stop bingeing. But one day, she came across the idea that her bingeing was caused by a biological need triggered by her restricting, and had simply become a negative habit. She was able to stop bingeing by not fighting the urges anymore, but by letting them come and go. Then gradually, she let go of that bad habit, as well as the need to restrict.
I've read mixed reviews about this book, but I think that the simple truth of bingeing after restricting food intake is a biological truth from an evolutionary standpoint. We are animals in the sense that bingeing is an instinct in states of deprivation, but we are unlike other animals in that we can control whether we continue restricting and purging or not.
She started binge eating when she started restricting her food intake (in a futile attempt to diet), which in turn caused a negative cycle of restricting, bingeing, and purging through excessive hours of exercise. This cycle consumed her life for years, and for a long time she believed that there was something mentally wrong with her. That she needed to fix the problems in her life before she could stop bingeing. But one day, she came across the idea that her bingeing was caused by a biological need triggered by her restricting, and had simply become a negative habit. She was able to stop bingeing by not fighting the urges anymore, but by letting them come and go. Then gradually, she let go of that bad habit, as well as the need to restrict.
I've read mixed reviews about this book, but I think that the simple truth of bingeing after restricting food intake is a biological truth from an evolutionary standpoint. We are animals in the sense that bingeing is an instinct in states of deprivation, but we are unlike other animals in that we can control whether we continue restricting and purging or not.
August 11, 2016
Some of those who are close to me know that I've been struggling with BED for over 8 years and not so healthy eating habits for much longer. This book is honestly the first time I've read something that helped me feel like I understand what's going on inside of my head and (hopefully) how to stop it.
I do agree with some other reviewers and even with the author that this is for people for whom traditional therapy methods don't/haven't worked. I don't have some deep emotional reason for why I started bingeing and I don't need to have all my ducks in a row for it to magically stop. For years, I have felt like when I binged it wasn't coming from me exactly. It was like I could hear the fight in my head sometimes, but because it was all in my brain, I would just accept what yelled the strongest and that was my animal brain's urge to binge.
I'll still listen and see what she has to say, but I'm keeping that voice at a distance, like a kid who's crying because I won't let them eat a crayon. Detach, let it go, eventually my brain will form new pathways and that auto-response will go away. I'm done reacting to that voice and those urges.
I do agree with some other reviewers and even with the author that this is for people for whom traditional therapy methods don't/haven't worked. I don't have some deep emotional reason for why I started bingeing and I don't need to have all my ducks in a row for it to magically stop. For years, I have felt like when I binged it wasn't coming from me exactly. It was like I could hear the fight in my head sometimes, but because it was all in my brain, I would just accept what yelled the strongest and that was my animal brain's urge to binge.
I'll still listen and see what she has to say, but I'm keeping that voice at a distance, like a kid who's crying because I won't let them eat a crayon. Detach, let it go, eventually my brain will form new pathways and that auto-response will go away. I'm done reacting to that voice and those urges.
January 29, 2019
My main takeaway here is that to understand and end an eating disorder, you don’t have to solve all your other life problems- it’s a separate thing.
There might be triggers, but you can stop binging without needing to first fix your relationship with X person and even without needing love yourself fully.
This awareness is crucial because I think therapy does pull an ED sufferer away from the issue itself. I had a therapist tell me straight away an ED often will last years or forever...that basically made me think, Why even hope to stop it now?
The author’s realisation moment translated to a near instant recovery, and I agree with other reviewers that her use of “just stop” to describe her recovery (ie she read a book and just stopped binging with her newfound knowledge) and similar phrasing oversimplifies the situation.
Nonetheless it was refreshing to relate to her experience in seeing an ED for what it is - an unhealthy urge - vs framing it as an unhealthy response to something else psychological and unrelated.
There might be triggers, but you can stop binging without needing to first fix your relationship with X person and even without needing love yourself fully.
This awareness is crucial because I think therapy does pull an ED sufferer away from the issue itself. I had a therapist tell me straight away an ED often will last years or forever...that basically made me think, Why even hope to stop it now?
The author’s realisation moment translated to a near instant recovery, and I agree with other reviewers that her use of “just stop” to describe her recovery (ie she read a book and just stopped binging with her newfound knowledge) and similar phrasing oversimplifies the situation.
Nonetheless it was refreshing to relate to her experience in seeing an ED for what it is - an unhealthy urge - vs framing it as an unhealthy response to something else psychological and unrelated.
May 21, 2020
I mean, I read this for utility's sake. Self-help books aren't really going to be graded like other books might be. And I'm not sure it's really working. I've suffered from Binge Eating Disorder for my entire adult life, pretty much. I've told a few people about it but this is the first time I'm saying it "publicly" (does anyone even read these?), which is weird, but, I feel like I should be more open about it. I started this a long time ago when I was looking for anything that would help. This book presented some interesting ideas, but I'm not sure I'll use them. BED and food addiction are clearly far more nuanced than "just resist the urges to binge", which is really all this book posits, again and again. Anyway, I'm doing an okay job now of managing my disorder, so that's good. This book didn't really help with that. I just had to finish it because I don't not finish books that I start.
February 2, 2020
I really wanted to like this and hoped to find answers to my own problems. The author does make some good points, and I feel genuine joy for her that she got out of her ED.
Unfortunately, the good points are buried in endless bullshit and terrible - potentially dangerous - advice. Treat this as a memoir, not a mental health book.
The author’s advice of “just stop bingeing” completely minimizes and even dismisses the actual ADDICTION to food. She repeatedly trashes traditional therapy and therapists, as if she’s an expert.
She goes so far as to say that relapse is a choice, because nobody is literally forcing us to binge. Are you going to tell a heroin addict the same thing?
Anyone out there who is knee deep in an ED or ED recovery, do NOT treat this as your bible and do not let it stop you from exploring traditional therapy. I partly can’t believe this book even exists.
Unfortunately, the good points are buried in endless bullshit and terrible - potentially dangerous - advice. Treat this as a memoir, not a mental health book.
The author’s advice of “just stop bingeing” completely minimizes and even dismisses the actual ADDICTION to food. She repeatedly trashes traditional therapy and therapists, as if she’s an expert.
She goes so far as to say that relapse is a choice, because nobody is literally forcing us to binge. Are you going to tell a heroin addict the same thing?
Anyone out there who is knee deep in an ED or ED recovery, do NOT treat this as your bible and do not let it stop you from exploring traditional therapy. I partly can’t believe this book even exists.
May 22, 2017
I read this due to recommendations from other people who binge eat. In the beginning, I was super hopeful on getting some great insights into how to stop my own vicious cycle. But that is not really what I got. Her whole great revelation is to just... stop bingeing. To tell your animal brain to back off. That's all well and good, but how is that sustainable? I suppose with will power, which I lack currently. I would've liked MORE personal information from her regarding struggles. She really bashed therapy hard, and that made me a little bummed because I'm in therapy right now and find it helpful to a point. Most of the book got SO boring, repetitive and just... bogged down with stuff I found unnecessary. I didn't really finish, I basically skimmed to the end. It's great she was able to overcome her issues but I think I wanted something MORE from this. I'm not bulimic. I'm not anorexic. I fall squarely into the binge-eating spectrum. This was a really odd read.
October 27, 2013
Cannot understand why rating is so high. Might be helpful for some people but for me it makes little sense. The recovery was described as if it's so dramatic that it is merely facilitated by a small self-help book called Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction. I'm speechless. However, the author do offer some insights including her question towards conventional therapy and her thoughts about dieting. As what is said in "NOTICE OF LIABILITY": this book is a personal story and cannot be universalised or substitute any healthcare intervention. Anyway, I do appreciate the publication of this kind of book, which opens a room for individual voices of their lived experience.
February 2, 2024
I recently found out that a friend of mine was bulimic, and this helped me a lot to understand her. Would recommend
March 16, 2024
Bought this book because of the good reviews on Amazon. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND TO PEOPLE WITH BINGE EATING BEHAVIORS. Very outdated and at times inaccurate depictions of eating disorder therapy. If you are reading it, keep in mind that this is a *personal story* and that the treatment happened back in *2000-2005*.
July 31, 2023
GoodReads definitely isn’t the right forum for this, but I’m writing it anyways. I came across a website a few weeks ago (https://www.eatlikeanormalperson.com/) from a random comment in a random thread on r/volumeeating, and it saved if not my life, then my quality of life. I’ve struggled deeply with bullemia, binge eating, body image issues, and I spent years letting food control every aspect of my life. The constant focus on calories, food, fat, etc. infected every part of my life, causing me to lose interest in activities, relationships, hobbies, and it caused me to pass up a number of social, educational, and career, and opportunities as well. For whatever reason, this website held the right words and it came at the right time, and my life as been so much brighter ever since. This book came recommended on the website and it felt as though the author was living inside my head—I felt at times as though I could have written it myself. While she and I didn’t have exactly the same issues, it was the most relatable thing I’ve ever read (seriously, I highlighted almost the entirety of part one) and a wonderful resource for anyone else who might be struggling. Life is hard, I’m not cured of all my mental health issues around food and body image by any means, but I firmly believe that I’ve moved on from bullemia, dieting, and starving myself like I have been for the last 4 years. For anyone who got this far, thanks for reading, and I wish you the best.
July 27, 2016
I am all for a book about eating disorders that avoids romanticizing them or otherwise falling into stereotypical narratives about their significance. I also like that this book considers issues in the philosophy of psychiatry (albeit in an very casual way), especially those connected to responsibility.
That said, I have five major issues with this book (aside from the fact that it's repetitive and far too long): First, the author overgeneralizes from her own experiences of therapy despite saying that she's not doing that throughout. She spends too little time and attention on the ways in which her own symptoms and approach to therapy may have informed her success with the Rational Recovery/Brain Over Binge method compared with other approaches she'd tried. Second, she keeps saying how the fact that her animal brain gave her urges to binge didn't make it unhealthy. I think what she's trying to say there is that those urges to binge are a kind of evolutionary glitch related to certain survival instincts and the fact that lower brain structures aren't particularly responsive to rational argument rather than some fundamental defect of hers. But arguably that glitch is itself unhealthy, and it's unclear what she's trying to do by saying that it isn't - to distinguish herself from people with "real" mental illness? It just made me kind of squeamish. Third, Hansen talks as though she had the choice to stop being bulimic at any time simply because she has free will and therefore has a choice not to binge. Even if that were true, it ignores the fact that some choices are a lot harder to make and to carry out than others. Fourth, she seems to endorse the view that her true self is just her "human brain" as if her lower brain is morally inferior or something. Hate to say it, but we wouldn't be alive without our lower brains, and it is a dangerous road to go down equating free will solely with rationality and rationality with certain brain regions and not others! Finally, the recovery approach she talked about involving mindfulness and distancing herself from her urges to binge sounds very much like certain therapeutic techniques from e.g., dialectical behavioral therapy that are becoming much more popular in eating disorder treatment. And Hansen talks as though CBT never involves revaluing urges to engage in pathological behavior - I would have thought talking about them as deriving from "cognitive distortions" is a kind of revaluing. Her method is also a psychological process with neurological consequences, not the other way around, so the way she presents it in terms of directly intervening on her brain is a bit misleading.
I am all for pluralism in eating disorder treatment, especially because the orthodox treatment methods have a relatively low success rate, but I think this book presents a view that is just the beginning of an alternative as an all-but-universal solution to binge eating and bulimia.
That said, I have five major issues with this book (aside from the fact that it's repetitive and far too long): First, the author overgeneralizes from her own experiences of therapy despite saying that she's not doing that throughout. She spends too little time and attention on the ways in which her own symptoms and approach to therapy may have informed her success with the Rational Recovery/Brain Over Binge method compared with other approaches she'd tried. Second, she keeps saying how the fact that her animal brain gave her urges to binge didn't make it unhealthy. I think what she's trying to say there is that those urges to binge are a kind of evolutionary glitch related to certain survival instincts and the fact that lower brain structures aren't particularly responsive to rational argument rather than some fundamental defect of hers. But arguably that glitch is itself unhealthy, and it's unclear what she's trying to do by saying that it isn't - to distinguish herself from people with "real" mental illness? It just made me kind of squeamish. Third, Hansen talks as though she had the choice to stop being bulimic at any time simply because she has free will and therefore has a choice not to binge. Even if that were true, it ignores the fact that some choices are a lot harder to make and to carry out than others. Fourth, she seems to endorse the view that her true self is just her "human brain" as if her lower brain is morally inferior or something. Hate to say it, but we wouldn't be alive without our lower brains, and it is a dangerous road to go down equating free will solely with rationality and rationality with certain brain regions and not others! Finally, the recovery approach she talked about involving mindfulness and distancing herself from her urges to binge sounds very much like certain therapeutic techniques from e.g., dialectical behavioral therapy that are becoming much more popular in eating disorder treatment. And Hansen talks as though CBT never involves revaluing urges to engage in pathological behavior - I would have thought talking about them as deriving from "cognitive distortions" is a kind of revaluing. Her method is also a psychological process with neurological consequences, not the other way around, so the way she presents it in terms of directly intervening on her brain is a bit misleading.
I am all for pluralism in eating disorder treatment, especially because the orthodox treatment methods have a relatively low success rate, but I think this book presents a view that is just the beginning of an alternative as an all-but-universal solution to binge eating and bulimia.
August 15, 2014
This!:)This is a must read for BN and BED sufferers. It utilizes the concept of Rational Recovery (of Substance Addictions) and Neuroplasticity. And personally speaking, I couldn't see any method or therapy that REALLY WORKS when it comes to stopping the destructive behavior that comes with BN and BED aside from this. No offense to psychology and medical community, but traditional method (or therapy) takes so much time, and results are not guaranteed, and relapse is always a concern, that it feels like you're practically wasting and spending your whole life (and money) just trying to recover, while the approach stated in this book saves lives, saves money, saves time, saves tears, and saves all those times you'll wonder if you'll ever get well and have a normal life again.
This book does not just give hope. It empowers and makes the readers accountable with their own behavior. It offers an easy and practical solution, a clear-cut way to recover permanently, that makes you not fear of relapsing again.
So, if I can change one person's mind, give one person hope, or save one person's life by recommending this book, then I too will have done enough.
This book does not just give hope. It empowers and makes the readers accountable with their own behavior. It offers an easy and practical solution, a clear-cut way to recover permanently, that makes you not fear of relapsing again.
So, if I can change one person's mind, give one person hope, or save one person's life by recommending this book, then I too will have done enough.
August 7, 2021
Only about half way through. I had listened to a couple podcast episodes because I have a problem with some serious cravings: Eating when I'm not hungry, eating fast or junk food when I'm on my way home to a fridge full of food already prepared and good for me, over-eating all the damn time. It didn't click though until I got to this point in the book. She first covers her experience and struggles with trying to get a hold of her problem via groups and mental health professionals. I didn't really connect there but then she got into the animal-brain portion and it really clicked. I have some experience and practice with mindfullness as well and maybe that helped but... fingers crossed... I'll keep reading
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