Individualising Treatment for People with Eating Disorders

About this event

Presenter: Nancy McWilliams

Date: Thursday 10 October 2024
Time: 10.00am AEDT (1-hour duration)
12.00pm New Zealand; 10.00am NSW, ACT, VIC, TAS; 9.00am QLD; 9.30am SA, 8.30am NT; 7.00am WA 

Webinar Overview: Psychiatric disorders express the confluence of many factors, including genetics, neurobiology, development, family context, sociocultural surround, and personality. When scientists study treatments for discrete disorders as defined by the DSM or ICD, they report findings and recommendations that are based on statistic averages. Clinicians, in contrast, deal not with average patients but with particular ones, including those whose individuality may locate them at the tail end of a bell curve or off the curve entirely. The meaning of an eating problem is specific to the person struggling with it. Difficulties with eating and weight may reflect, among other influences, neurotic, borderline, or psychotic dynamics; patterns that are more anorexic or more bulimic; issues of gender and sexual orientation; and varying cultural and subcultural orientations toward food and eating. This talk will explore individual variations in eating disorders and their subjective meanings and will suggest some clinical implications of those differences.

 

Nancy McWilliams is Visiting Professor Emerita at the Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology of Rutgers University and has a private practice in Lambertville, NJ, USA. She is author of four textbooks (on psychoanalytic diagnosis, case formulation, therapy, and supervision) and co-editor of both editions of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. A former president of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy of the American Psychological Association, she is a member of the Austen Riggs Center Board of Trustees. Her books are available in 20 languages and she has taught in 30 countries.