Fighting the scale: Overcoming disordered eating in current society

Abstract

This autoethnography will seek to address my lived experience of bulimia, to fully explore the integration of bulimia and the concurrent concepts I have experienced of trauma, genetics, and societal pressure. I will weave together these understandings in an integrated bio-psycho-social- spiritual approach with what I learn from literature in a qualitative way. In doing so, I will help develop a clearer interpretation of the implications eating disorders have within the counselling psychology and psychotherapy field, and to help therapists gain greater insight into people’s experiences with eating disorders. The purpose of this study is to address the prevalence of eating disorders within Western society using a bio-pyscho-social-spiritual lens. I will be using a questionnaire to ask three participants, plus myself, to explain about their journey with bulimia, and write about themes and insights associated with my participants’ stories. Parts of these interviews will be included in Chapter 4 of my thesis to give a strong voice for those who have struggled, and to help share their unique stories that carry similar strands of their female experience. I will also incorporate my journal writing and poetry into my autoethnography, as the integrations of the arts is a significant part of my passion and being. This thesis will be useful for understanding the multi-faceted components that can correlate to someone struggling with an eating disorder. After all, eating disorders “are not about food” (Moulding, 2015, p. 1456).