Motivating Women with Disordered Eating Towards Empowerment and Change Using Narratives of Archetypal Metaphor

Abstract

Women suffering from body image, weight issues, and eating disorders mirror a culture participating in out of control consumerism, isolation from community, addiction, war, and starvation of individual-identity. A therapeutic alliance is challenging due to the stringent control issues that have evolved as a result of this culture. Integrating narrative therapy with archetypal metaphors provides a medium for the client to tell her own story while using the guise of symbols. This therapy process is used as a way to help women progress through the stages of change using motivational interviewing techniques. The journey is conceptualized in art and story as movement from the hopelessness of the victim of a sick culture to the empowerment of the heroine taking appropriate control of her health.

Key Words:

• Eating disorders
• narrative therapy
• heroine's journey
• stages of change
• metaphors
• archetypes
• symbols