Maintaining recovery from eating disorders
Forward by Catherine Walker
Knowledge can often hold the key to recovery from many disorders. A recently published book called 
'Maintaining Recovery from Eating Disorders’ by Naomi Feigenhaum is a welcome addition to bookshelves. It is full of first-hand information and inspiration from an author who has personal experience of an eating disorder. Below is the press release from Jessica Kingsley Publishers which gives an insight into all that this book contains:-
“I was no longer ‘sick’. I was no longer ‘special’.” -
Naomi Feigenbaum knows how hard recovering from an eating disorder can be. She was first diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa at the age of 14, but reached a level of recovery following therapy. Although she was at a healthy weight for most of her teens she was not symptom-free, and Naomi finally relapsed at 19. The following year she was hospitalised because she was so dangerously underweight.
“Recovery from an eating disorder is not something you should attempt on your own. It is my hope that this book will aid in readers’ recoveries, and help their loved ones better understand the process and how they can be supportive. Use this book as a springboard for self-discovery and hope,” says Naomi.
Her experience taught her that it is not enough for sufferers to eat well when they are undergoing intensive therapy, as at their core eating disorders are not just about food. Maintaining that recovery after treatment, going back to their old lives, full of the old ‘triggers’ is just as much of a struggle for sufferers as stopping symptoms like, purging, and restricting food intake, but it is a struggle for which there is a woeful lack of support.
Naomi says “Transitions are the strongest form of triggers because during times of foreign, new experiences, people automatically revert to patterns that are familiar and comfortable. If old, familiar patterns include eating disorder behaviours then that person must be on guard.”
Maintaining recovery from eating disorders is about battling triggers. Ironically, even books designed to help the sufferer can trigger a sense of competition, a desire to be the “sickest”, to have the most severe symptoms. Knowing this, Naomi set out to write Maintaining Recovery from Eating Disorders (Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 15 September, 2011, £12.99) a book designed to be trigger free. This book stresses that recovery is a choice that anyone can make and impresses upon readers that even though their surroundings may be the same, they can change.
“Recover your life and achieve your dreams because, in essence, recovery is not about the illness that was – it’s about the life that is,” Naomi concludes.
For more information on Jessica Kingsley Publishers or to purchase this book please click here.
