Narrative Therapy as an innovative approach to Anorexia Nervosa treatment: a literature review

ABSTRACT

Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by a morbid fear of gaining weight, excessive restriction of food and intense and exaggerated practice of physical exercise. There are two subtypes of anorexia: restrictive and purgative. Its prevalence is mainly in female adolescents aged 15 to 19 and entails multiple harmful physical, psychological, social, and emotional consequences. Anorexia is portrayed as a multifactorial disorder, requiring a biopsychosocial perspective and a multidisciplinary intervention to address all the affected areas of the individual. In this article, we approach the appliance of Narrative Therapy by White and Epston ((1989). Literate Means to Therapeutic Ends. Dulwich Centre Publications), which advocates that the psychotherapeutic treatment can be carried out together – psychologist, client and family – with the literature supporting it. Anorexia is an egosyntonic disorder associated with a high mortality rate. It should be noted that the cure for anorexia is not granted since there is an increased number of relapses and treatment dropouts. For this reason, an innovative approach like narrative therapy can be approached with promising results.

KEYWORDS:

• Eating disorder
• anorexia
• adolescence
• body image
• narrative therapy
• multidisciplinary intervention

Disclosure statement

Petra José Pereira Santos, Luísa Soares and Ana Lúcia Faria, authors of the manuscript entitled “Narrative Therapy as an innovative approach to Anorexia Nervosa treatment: a literature review,” declare that we have no financial, commercial, political, academic, or personal conflicts of interest.