I am a little bemused by the study into the reluctance to recover in anorexia. Yes, it is important to know why people with eating disorders are scared of recovery, but not wanting to recover is a symptom of eating disorders, not a rational objection to treatment. It's already treated as a great excuse to turf patients out of treatment (they weren't motivated enough!), I can't see how a study like this is going to improve matters. My gut instinct tells me that addressing the concerns about recovery of people with eating disorders is important, but it may be even more so to gently but firmly reassure them that reluctance to recover is just part of the illness, and that very often this mindset will not change until they are already in the process of recovery.

Jenni Schaefer's article is sweet :) recovery has taught me some completely random things as well.

Katie,

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. That's exactly what I was thinking.

It is important to understand why patients are reluctant to recover (or what positive things they are getting from the ED) so that a therapist can address these issues. But as you said, the reluctance can persist long into recovery and isn't necessarily a hindrance.

As a life long ed girl, I can say with powerful vehemence that I want to recover about as bad as my son wanted to learn to take a crap on the potty. You'd THINK a kid would understand that it's "cleaner," "nicer," whatever. But they've lived their whole life shitting in the warmth of a diaper, and are suddenly told to sit naked on a cold hard plastic seat and drop their shit into a bowl of water and it just feels... SCARY. And hard. And unreasonable. And 100% unappealing.

Do I want to live? Yes. Do I want to recover? Nope. Recovery sucks. My therapist is currently choosing recovery FOR me- I'm being strong-armed. Sometimes I'm pissed off about this. Other times I'm relieved. Reluctance seems like the only rational reaction to being forced to do something uncomfortable. Emphasis (in my opinion) should be placed on relieving the symptoms of anxiety and distress that arrive as a person is being pushed past their reluctance. If my therapist and I talked about why I'm scared of doing this, that's all we'd ever cover. She has told me that recovery is not optional. It is much MORE productive to talk about how to cope with the anxiety of doing this than why I don't want to, since I have to do it anyway.

On a different note, I wonder if those clinical trials in which they follow up on anorexics x number of years past treatment are reliable? Because here's the thing. If I entered treatment, signed up for a study, and I knew someone would be weighing and measuring and assessing me 4 years down the road, I'd decide RIGHT NOW that I wouldn't be gaining ANY more weight until at least 4 years and 1 day FROM right now. Or that if I did gain anything, I'd be sure to get it back off before the checkpoint. I'd be terrified. Maybe that's not everyone. Maybe that's just me. But wow. I couldn't handle that. No- I will happily stay unstudied- and hopefully this recovery will stick.