Journal of Alternative Medicine Research ISSN: 1939-5868 Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. 233-246 © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Eating disorders from a holistic point of view Søren Ventegodt, MD, MMedSci, EU-MSc- Abstract CAM∗1,2,3,4,5, Katja Braga2,3, Isack Kandel, MA, PhD6,7 and Joav Merrick, MD, Virtually all teenage girls and young women have to some 5,7,8,9 extent an eating disorder and some research has shown to MMedSci, DMSc covariate with the intensity of psychosexual developmental 1Quality of Life Research Center, Copenhagen, disturbances and sexual problems. We suggest simple Denmark; psychosexual (psychodynamic) explanations for the most 2Research Clinic for Holistic Medicine common eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, bulimia 3Nordic School of Holistic Medicine, Copenhagen, nervosa, and binge eating disorder and propose the hypothesis that eating disorders can be easily understood as Denmark; symptoms of the underlying psychosexual developmental 4 Scandinavian Foundation for Holistic Medicine, disturbances. We relate the symptoms of the eating Sandvika, Norway; disorders to three major strategies for repressing sexuality: 5Interuniversity College, Graz, Austria; 1) The dispersion of the flow of sexual energy - from the a) 6Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Behavioral orgasmic potent, genitally mature (“vaginal”) state via the Sciences, Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, b) more immature, masturbatory (“clitoral”) state, and further into the c) state of infantile autoerotism (“asexual Israel; 7 state”). 2) The dislocation from the genitals to the bodies National Institute of Child Health and Human other organs, especially the digestive and urinary tract Development organs (the kidney-bladder-urethra) giving the situation 8Office of the Medical Director, Division for Mental where sexual energy is accumulated and subsequently Retardation, Ministry of Social Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel released though the substituting organs. 3) The repression 9Kentucky Children’s Hospital, University of Kentucky, of a) free, natural and joyful sexuality into first b) sadism, and then further into c) masochism. We conclude that the Lexington, United States eating disorders easily can be understood as sexual energies living their own life in the non-genital body organs, and we present results from the Research Clinic for Holistic Medicine, Copenhagen, where eating disorders have been treated with accelerated psychosexual development. We included the patients with eating disorders into the protocol for sexual disturbances and found half these patients to be cured in one year and with 20 sessions of clinical holistic therapy. Keywords: Adolescent, eating disorders, integrative medicine, holistic medicine. Introduction Virtually every teenage girl on the western ∗ Correspondence: Søren Ventegodt, MD, MMedSci, EU- hemisphere – and most women between 12 and 35 MSc-CAM, Director, Quality of Life Research Center, years– has an eating disorder to some extends. Classensgade 11C, 1 sal, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Tel: +45-33-141113; Fax: +45-33-141123; E- Working as physicians in general practice we have mail: [email protected] observed not only a high prevalence of severe eating 234 Søren Ventegodt, Katja Braga, Isack Kandel et al. disorders like anorexia (the general loss of appetite or any interest; in anorexia nervosa there is a battle in disinterest in food), anorexia nervosa (the intended the patient not to eat in spite of an urge for eating; in weight loss by starvation, over-exercise, purging etc.) bulimia we have the compensatory overeating, and in and bulimia nervosa (the cyclical, recurring pattern of bulimia nervosa we have the inner conflict between binge eating often followed by guilt, self- one part of the patient that want to eat and an other recrimination and compensatory behavior such as that do not. In binging the striving is for simply filling dieting, over-exercising and purging) (see list of the the stomach and thereafter emptying it totally again, eating disorders listed in ICD-10 in table 1 (1)), but releasing all tension. The emotional character of the also a number of milder disorders that less often are eating disorder has made them difficult to treat with put into diagnoses followed by medical treatment, like behavioral therapy; it has not been able to treat them binge eating disorder (uncontrolled bursts of successfully with drugs either. So most patients suffer overeating followed by compulsive vomiting), from their eating disorder the first 20 years after early extreme and obsessive weight control (often by puberty; after that is normally tend to burn out – as to patients with a normal weight) where the bathroom the sexual urge. weight are used several times a day, and obsessive, There are many scientific speculations about neurotic attitudes to food i.e. a too large importance biological reasons for the eating disorders - the same attributed to avoiding calories, or carbohydrates, or way psychiatrists for a hundred years now have fat, or even the compulsive abandonment of a single speculated in possible biological reasons for mental foot items like white sugar, white bread etc. illnesses; but neither has till this day showed genetic Other expressions of this are extreme exercise- or any other clear scientific evidence for being programs sometimes even encouraged by the “hardwired” in the human nature. It is often said that physician, and vanity that converts into a compulsive the eating disorders disturb other aspects of the drive for being as slim as the commercial fashion- patient’s life, including her sexual life, but this is most models. The girls often present severely disturbed likely to be the other way round: the eating disorder is body images in combination with either an antisocial a symptom of a deeper psychosexual disturbance. behavioral pattern with withdrawal and social It is worth to speculate that the problems started isolation (antisocial or severely disturbed personality), with puberty and gradually goes down (“burns out”) or a strong dependency on the confirmation of their during the next 20 years until the 35-year old woman, value as a person from peers and parents (dependent who statistically have come to know her body and personality type), or a need for constant appraisal of sexuality by getting rid of her eating disorder, or at the bodies’ sexual value from boys (hypersexual least of its symptoms. The close association in time behavior). So the closer we look at the appetite and intensity is a strong clue that eating disorders dysregulations, the more they seem deeply connected might be causally linked to sexuality. to psychosexual factors. Psychosomatic and psychosexual research has in Therapists who work with young female patients accordance with this shown sexuality to be closely with eating disorders often notice that there seem to linked to the eating disorders. Morgan et al (2) found be both a mental (psychoform) and a bodily that anorectics were less likely than bulimics to have (somatoform) aspect of the problem. The patient’s engaged in masturbation and also scored lower on a mind often carries a lot of thoughts and ideas about measure of sexual esteem, and both groups exhibited the vital importance of not getting too fat and ugly, less sexual interest and more negative affect during combined with feelings of shame and guilt from not sex than did a normative sample (2). Abraham et al being able to control the eating habits, etc. The (3) found that bulimic patients were more likely to patient’s body often seems to live its own life. Some experience orgasm with masturbation, were more times it is compensatory attracted to food, at other likely to have experimented with anal intercourse, and times strongly repelled by food, and at other times were more likely to describe their libido as “above again not interested in food at all. average”, while their controls were more likely to Often the phases vary in a cyclic, rather experience orgasm during sexual intercourse (3). predictable way. In anorexia, food is simply not of Raboch and Faltus (4) found that “primary or Eating disorders from a holistic point of view 235 secondary insufficiencies of sexual life were found for helping the patients with clinical holistic medicine 80% of the anorectic patients”(4), while Raboch (5) (CHM) and the obtained results from the clinical found that sexual development of patients with practice, to be found at www.pubmed.gov, search for anorexia nervosa was accelerated in the initial stages. papers with “clinical holistic medicine” in the title). Sarol-Kulka et al (6) found in a pilot study that the anorectic patients showed interest in the opposite Table 1. The 2007 ICD-10 list of eating disorders and sex at an earlier age than patients with bulimia; sexual disorders. Notice the similarities however, the anorectic females, more frequently than bulimic, reported that these interests were never realized. 36% of patients with anorexia and 29% of (F50.) Eating disorders patients with bulimia had no sexual initiation. When (F50.0) Anorexia nervosa evaluating the negative aspects of their own sexuality, (F50.1) Atypical anorexia nervosa 28% of patients with bulimia and 9% of patients with (F50.2) Bulimia nervosa anorexia reported difficulties in achieving orgasm; (F50.3) Atypical bulimia nervosa (F50.4) Overeating associated with other 13% of bulimic and 9% of anorectic females reported psychological disturbances difficulties in getting aroused, 22% of bulimic and (F50.5) Vomiting associated with other 17% of anorectic females reported fearing the sexual psychological disturbances initiation (6). (F50.8) Other eating disorders Handa et al (7) found that 16.3% of patient with (F50.9) Eating disorder, unspecified eating disorders had been physically abused and Sanci (8) found that childhood sexual abuse happed 2.5 (F52.) Sexual dysfunction, not caused by organic times as often as normal with patients that later disorder or disease developed bulimia; the patients who developed (F52.0) Lack or loss of sexual desire anorexia did not show this association.