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Disordered Beliefs
Eating disordered individuals often adhere to distorted beliefs that are a direct
result of their eating disorder. Most people with eating disorders view their bodies
inaccurately, placing inordinate value on appearance. Some examples include thoughts
such as “ If only I was thinner, then I would be happy” or “ If I ate what I wanted
to eat, I would become huge”. These distorted beliefs become a source of emotional
discomfort and can cause other related problems for individuals suffering from anorexia,
bulimia and compulsive eating. Beliefs about events, others and self have a significant
influence on feelings and actions taken. For anorexics, bulimics, and compulsive
eaters, when beliefs are distorted, then resulting feelings and actions may not
match true situations. For eating disordered individuals to rectify their distorted
beliefs into matching their current situation the eating disordered individual must
first:
1. Become conscious of their belief system;
2. Identify the eating disorder distortions they contain and any benefits that may
have been obtained from the distortions; and
3. Learn to substitute more accurate non-eating disordered alternative beliefs for
the distorted beliefs.
The following are definitions of some of the most commonly used distortions among
anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating.
Black or White Thinking
This type of eating disorder distortion is also known as all or nothing thinking.
Individuals suffering from anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating often see themselves
in terms of extremes. Black and white statements include: I am either good or bad,
a success or complete failure, worthwhile or worthless. This type of distortion
has devastating consequences on self-esteem since small imperfections are taken
as proof of a belief of totally worthlessness. Instead, eating disordered individuals
must learn to see that life mostly exists in the gray. A fair inventory of anyone
will show negative as well as positive attributes.
Overgeneralization
This eating disorder distortion is when an anorexic, bulimic or compulsive eater
takes an isolated event and then draws a broad general rule from the event. This
new distorted broad rule is then applied to numerous situations. An example would
be from a sexual abuse experience by an abuser, which could be over generalized
to the belief that "all men will abuse me". An alternative belief would be that
the offender is an abusive individual, but not all men I come into contact with
will abuse me.
Mislabeling
This is a distortion whereby an eating disordered individual takes a single personal
deficiency and mislabels her or himself as completely negative. An example of this
distortion would be "I did not stop the binge, therefore I am an entirely weak person".
No one event or characteristic determines our entire worth. Eating disorders are
diseases that willpower alone will not arrest.
Mental Filtering
This distortion in anorexia, bulimia or compulsive eating occurs when a negative
detail is picked out from an event and obsessed on to the exclusion of all other
facts. This is called mental filtering because the negative detail remains but all
other information is filtered out. For eating disordered individuals, if someone
tells them ten positive attributes of their personality and one negative attribute,
they will focus on the one negative attribute to the exclusion of the ten positive
attributes.
Disqualifying the Positive
This eating disorder distortion is where any positive experience is transformed
into a negative one by discounting. A common example would be receiving positive
attention from a person and believing that "the only reason he pays attention to
me is because he wants something from me". This distortion prevents individuals
suffering from anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating from receiving affirmations
and positive messages from others.
Magnification and Minimization
Magnification refers to the distortion for anorexics, bulimics and compulsive eaters
of magnifying negative attributes and deficiencies. Minimization is the eating disorder
distortion of downplaying positive attributes. These eating disorder distortions
are a double-edged sword against self-esteem since negative aspects are exaggerated
and good points are minimized.
Emotional Reasoning
In this type of distortion anorexics, bulimics and compulsive eaters take feelings
and turn them into facts. For example, many eating disordered individuals feel guilty
about the eating disorder behavior and through this type of distortion anorexics,
bulimics and compulsive eaters rationalize that since they feel guilty about the
eating disorder behavior, they must be guilty. In actuality, eating disorders are
diseases and therefore no one is to blame even though the eating disordered individual
may be the one having the feeling and carrying the burden of guilt.
Should Statements
Many individuals suffering from anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating live with
the "tyranny of the shoulds". These should statements are often unrealistic expectations
for the eating disorder individual and others, often setting the eating disorder
individual up for disappointment and failure. Examples include: "I should have willpower";
"I should be able to stop this"; "I should have known better"; I should have told
someone"; "She should have known"; and "I should have stopped him".
Personalization
This eating disorder distortion is a misattribution of responsibility often found
in survivors of abuse. Victims of abuse often inappropriately accept the responsibility
for the abuse. A common misinformed statement is, "I must have been responsible
for the abuse since I did not resist and it went on for so long". This is not true
since a victim of abuse often does not have the capacity or knowledge to resist
abuse.
These are just some of the more common distorted thoughts and beliefs. Rader Programs
understands how individuals develop these thought processes and can help individuals
replace these dysfunctional thought processes with healthy accurate beliefs.
For more information or to arrange for a free confidential consultation, call
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