How to Treat Someone with EDNOS

There are other eating disorders besides anorexia and bulimia. They are the most familiar known eating disorders out there, but an important one to know is the one called EDNOS, or Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Great information about chemical dependency treatment programs is available at the link. Most likely because of its indistinct name, many people do not regard EDNOS as a significant threat or take it seriously enough, and scarily enough, its mortality rate is the highest of them all!

The unfortunate thing about eating disorders is that they are not necessarily apparent. A rail-thin teenage girl who doesn't eat anything is no longer the only picture of eating disorders, nor is the healthier seeming girl who vomits after every meal. The fact is that eating disorders all come from psychological roots and require professional attention and treatment from a place of compassion and understanding.

Behaviors associated with EDNOS include very obsessive-compulsive habits like sticking to very rigid diets or rules, letting diet get in the way of a normal lifestyle, frequently favoring workouts over meals, or fixations on diet that take over the entire day. Rigid dieting means that a person has identified very inflexible, and often inexplicable, rules that he will not allow himself to break, e.g., not being able to eat prior to 5pm or not eating particular food groups. A diet that interferes with a normal lifestyle might be one in which the person frequently cancels on social events in favor of unnecessary and intensive working out. The eating disorder center of California has experts in treating eating disorders. It is also symptomatic if the person in question spends unreasonable amounts of time all day long researching food and calories to further restrict or modify his dietary habits.

Many times, an eating disorder may come hand in hand with one or more other psychological disorders. They also often come simultaneous to chemical dependencies. And what is a chemical dependency? The layman usually refers to this as addiction, wherein a person becomes familiar with turning to a substance or an activity for emotional comfort so much so that that person will feel the need for more and more of it in order to achieve the release of hormones in the brain (the chemicals) that make them feel good again. Over time, addiction turns from close friend to foe. Accompanying addictions to eating disorders may be alcoholism or drug abuse, and even cutting oneself or self-mutilation.

It is absolutely imperative that anyone suffering from either an eating disorder and/or an addiction get treated for his afflictions, due to the inevitable decline in health he will experience without treatment. Family members can help encourage education by offering to bring a patient to nutrition counseling, behavior counseling, or psychotherapy. Some cases are severe enough that medication may be required. Anyone who undergoes these conditions must be treated with a highly individualized, dynamic, and transparent plan. Learn more about the New Dawn Center. The professionals involved must all exhibit empathy, trustworthiness, and honesty with their patients. A patient will do well with the community reinforcement approach that supplements the motivational interviewing and possible efforts at harm reduction during treatment.