Closer to Fine

Abstract

Treatment for eating disorders often occurs in small, private counseling offices or isolated treatment centers, where clients’ voices remain inaccessible. Meanwhile, therapists, nutritionists, and doctors discuss “best practices” for treating those with eating disorders. In this article, the author provides a personal account of her struggle not only with anorexia nervosa but also with various treatments. Relying on journals kept for over ten years, the author utilizes poststructuralist, critical theory to argue that many therapies and medications used in the treatment of her anorexia were unhelpful. She then describes how a more thoughtful/participatory/egalitarian approach for helping those with eating issues, one that relies less on labeling and more on empowerment, was key to her “recovery.”