Read: Burnout, The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle

I can think of no better suggestion to kick off the New Year and new decade than this book! I know I am making two Emily Nagoski suggestions back to back but consider me an official fangirl!

This time of year we will all be bombarded by messages telling us to reinvent the wheel of our lives in a multitude of ways. For many of us, this is the last message we need. So instead, let me offer you some wisdom from this book and suggest instead, that the wheel does not need reinventing, it needs a break! Emily co-authored this book with her sister and the two of them explore the various components of burnout which they define as a combination of emotional exhaustion, depletion of empathy and feelings of futility.

They discuss the various social constructs that have lead to what they coined, “Human Giver Syndrome,” something that predominantly impacts women in our culture but certainly not exclusively, “At the heart of Human Giver Syndrome lies the deeply buried, unspoken assumption that women should give everything, every moment of their lives, every drop of energy, to the care of others.” She explains how this imbedded cultural assumption leads to perpetual feelings of guilt around self-care. This is something I see in the women I work with in my practice all the time. It’s not exclusive to adult women, I see it in teenagers who have incredible difficulty saying no to plans or commitments despite massive amounts of overwhelm or who have intense guilt going to sleep before exams when they feel every moment should be spent on “productive” studying late into the night. This book tackles the general concept of how we define productivity in our culture, something I have long taken issue with in my own clinical work.

The heart of the book is the explanation of the importance of completing the stress-response cycle and the many dangers of failing to do so, emotionally and physiologically. While they lay the science out clearly and inarguably, they also nod to the ways our culture has made completion of this cycle challenging when emotional expression of hardship has been largely considered taboo and a sign of weakness. However, they offer a range of ways to address this through emotional and physical outlets both independent and social. Couple all of this with the social pressures around body image which they endearingly coin, “The Bikini Industrial Complex.” While the address the ways in which this particular complex leads to disordered eating, they also explore the more general psychological toll that captures a wider pool of victims.

Overall, the book reads like a deeply validating friend, pointing to all the ways our society sets women up for burnout from all angles. But we are not doomed! For each component of burnout there are numerous ways to combat that harmful influence and complete the stress-response cycle to prevent things piling up and leading to burnout. So this January, I highly suggest getting a copy of this book, questioning your definition of productivity for a little while and curling up for a beneficial and delightful read.

Listen: Ologies, Episode #22 "Mythology"

Anything that I know to be cool I have likely learned about from one of my clients. It’s really quite a perk of the job, the varying tidbits that I gather all day long from such a wide variety of brilliant sources. One such suggestion was the podcast, Ologies, which has been a delight to dive into. In the show, the host Alie Ward, interviews a wide range of experts in varying fields who are classified as “_ologists,” in their respective arenas. One of these episodes that I found to be of particular interest was with mythologist, John Bucher. I won’t spoil the whole episode, but it is full of gems and I highly recommend listening to the whole thing.

However, the part that particularly caught my ear was during his explanation of a fable, specifically, The Tortoise and The Hare. In his explanation, John explains that historically, before things got a bit watered down, fables were meant to be interpreted as each character representing a different part of the self. Often when we hear this tale today, we mistakenly interpret it by aligning ourselves as either the tortoise or the hare and the lesson we learn then depends on which identification we have made. However, the fable is actually meant to illuminate two different sides of self here, two different sides that are in fact, in opposition with one another.

It just so happens, that this is precisely how I learned to go about working with my clients healing from eating disorders. The brilliant Carolyn Costin, worked from the model of two competing sides of self that ultimately, require integration in order to achieve and maintain recovery. There is the eating disorder self, and there is the soul self/healthy self. Her approach works to slowly reconnect a client to the soul self/healthy self that has been less forefront, and from there, the soul self/healthy self begins to become more prominent and can combat the eating disorder self through internal self to self dialogue. If this sounds confusing, here is the comparison I often give my clients. When I wake up in the morning, there is the side of self that wants to hit snooze and go back to bed, but there is a strong side of me rooted in my values and goals and connections, that reminds me that I need to get up and out into my day. However, that part that wants to hit snooze may be important for me to listen to and honor in other contexts, like a cozy Friday night on the couch with Netflix and no plans, just not in ways that compromise my well-being.

The episode touches on some crossover between mythology and psychology and how both are rooted in story telling. As a kid, I was really into theater and acting, and while I later grew up and realized the life of an actor was not one I could stomach, my fascination with stories and story telling has never dulled. I find that truly powerful therapeutic work hinges upon the ability to tell our own story using our own words and conceptualizations to make sense of our experiences and ultimately, ourselves.

What stories and myths might you be telling? What parts of self are leading the way?

https://www.alieward.com/ologies/2018/2/26/20-mythology-with-john-bucher

Listen: RadioLab, “Goo and You”

Every year on January 1st, like clockwork, the diet industry seems to awaken with a roar, screaming some newly packaged rendition of the same old cry, “new year, new you!” The notion that we need to transform ourselves physically in order to achieve whatever our year’s goals and desires may be, is a flagrant and desperate marketing scam for sure, but it also drives home a desperately sad deeper message. In order to grow as humans in any way “that counts,” we need to invert ourselves so that we are no longer recognizable. While it seems like this message would be so painful that we would easily turn away from it, somehow, every year, it remains dazzling to so many.

However, for some individuals, transformation is terrifying. For my clients working towards recovery from their eating disorders, transformation is something to be feared. For some, this is due to long held fears of their bodies changing in one way or another and the barrage of messages they have internalized about how that must be avoided at all costs. But even more than the physical changes that can at times, accompany recovery, is the fear, “who will I be without my eating disorder?” There is this notion that without the beliefs, behaviors, rituals and drives that accompany the eating disorder that whatever is left will be entirely unknown to them, and not only that, it probably won’t be that great. I used to find this idea puzzling, but now I see that it extends to a lot of clients struggling with a range of challenges that have molded to their identities until the two seem so fuzed that one ceases to seemingly exist without the other. In this way, being told you are working to get rid of _____, becomes the farthest thing from hopeful.

The concept of “the self” is a long-standing point of philosophical exploration and debate. It was John Locke, who was the first to coin the notion that “the self,” is formed by the continuous experiences and memories that compound over time. I find this belief quite comforting. With this lens, we could go through radical changes and still, our sense of self would remain. This is often what I witness with my clients, but it’s a hard thing to reassure someone on until it has been lived through.

Butterflies know a great deal about lived through radical changes in the course of a single and continuous life experience. It is not surprising that they are often used as a symbol for eating disorder recovery. However, this podcast may surprise you in what you think you know about them and the next time it feels like the walls of your life are melting all around you and that you no longer recognize your place in the world, remembering these champions of change might bring a little comfort. May they also serve as a reminder that no matter how our forms shift throughout life, we continue to inhabit them as the same being and anyone who says otherwise is selling something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=xImVt_hhVAw

Read: Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

On the heels of Halloween, with the multitude of princess costumes that surely flooded the streets in all corners of this country, I can think of no better book to reference than this one.

Let me say first,  I loved this book and my copy is almost entirely underlined. To paint a brief picture, I’ll choose one of those powerful snippets, “even as new educational and professional opportunities unfurl before my daughter, and her peers, so does the path that encourages them to equate identity with image, self-expression with appearance, femininity with performance, pleasure with pleasing, and sexuality with sexualization.”

Orenstein examines a specific niche of the many challenges of raising a girl in the modern, capitalist driven American culture we live in today. She tracks developmental stages alongside of marketing campaigns targeted at them and their long-term outcomes on esteem and self-concept. She explains how the sexualization of toys and the culture directed at young girls, leads to a fixation on appearing somewhere on the desirable/approved–sexy spectrum, and simultaneously disconnects girls from their own emotional exploration around desire and self-satisfaction. In this way, the goal becomes external approval and external satisfaction. This is the beginning of a series of trap doors that follow young women throughout their development, often leading to high levels of anxiety, depression and certainly eating disorders to name a few.

 All of that and not to mention really murky territory when it comes to development of sexual empowerment later in life. Here is another choice snippet by Deborah Tolman to illustrate the risk, “they [teenage girls] respond to questions about how their bodies feel- questions about sexuality and arousal- by describing how they think they should look. I have to remind them that looking good is not a feeling.” That quote gives me chills. It is a frightening abdication from one’s sense of self to confuse internal feelings of one’s own experience with external assessments of how one appears to the outside lens (which we might add, is then ever changing).

Luckily, it’s not all gloom and doom. Along with bigger more radical steps, this book also illuminates many simple parenting approaches to help buffer these influences. One that may ring controversial, is that yes, it is okay to tell your daughter she is beautiful. The key is to tell her when she is crying, when she is sweaty after a soccer game, when she speaks up to a friend, when she has her first heartbreak. Orenstein says, “it is important to connect beauty and love…Everything about you is beautiful to me- you are beautiful to me. That way you are not just objectifying her body.”

Orenstein brings the reader along as she navigates her experience with her own daughter with humility and humor. This book is valuable to anyone helping to raise, influence, role model or connect with a young girl in today’s world.

*It should be noted that Orenstein writes in reference to the cisgender, straight, young female population.

Read: Sick Enough by Dr. Jennifer L. Gaudiani MD, CEDS, FAED

It is highly unlikely that you will find any other medical text recommended on this platform. That is not, as one might assume, due to the unique and niche role that this text fills for the field of eating disorder work, but rather, because the ease with which it can be understood sets it apart from the vast majority of other texts of this caliber.  

Sick Enough, is of critical value to any practicing medical professional. Regardless of specialty, at some point, there will be an interaction with a patient that either counters weight bias and the varying stigmas that minimize and/or perpetuate eating disorders, or there will be a missed opportunity that quietly lays root to harm. If those stakes feel high for medical practitioners, they should.

Luckily, in addition to various medical interventions, the book is capped with a number of actions that can be taken by providers and loved ones alike so as not to be paralyzed in the face of concern. This book will leave every reader armed with knowledge and grace to feel capable in the critical role of support.

Dr. Gaudiani is as adept at capturing and distilling medical nuances as she is with broadly addressing a multitude of social issues that not only impact this population, but the vast entirety of our diverse and complex culture. Sadly, I find it as rare in the medical community as I do refreshing, how Dr. Gaudiani languages issues pertaining to the social oppressions that so many patients face. Her unique approach  to zoom out far beyond the physical human body and into the social realms and constructs impacting each individual, truly exemplifies whole person care.

Anyone who is a provider, despite efforts to be as non-hierarchical as we can, is in a position of power. Dr. Gaudiani tackles this truth with deep humility and powerful dedication towards her role as a pioneer in the medical field for truly doing no harm on a much more influential level.

This book is as critical for the education of providers and supports as it is for the validation of those living with eating disorders.  

https://www.amazon.com/Sick-Enough-Medical-Complications-Disorders/dp/0815382456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539097995&sr=1-1&keywords=sick+enough