A “Positive Disposition to Recover”.
Even if someone volunteers for treatment, if is often to seek relief from preoccupation with food, depression or physical symptoms. It could be due to rising concern about the risks of anorexia or to avoid the side effects such as infertility. Does this represent a real positive disposition to recover from the illness (whatever that means)?
Recovery from anorexia is not just about gaining weight. In many cases being willing to gain some weight is “conditional” on continuing to eat a very limited diet, often vegetarian or low in carbohydrate and fat.
Eating more is often conditional on continuing to exercise a great deal. There is a great debate about what constitutes “excessive exercise” and our opinions are clouded by views about the dangers of sedentary behaviour and the general approval which is given to people who “go to the gym”.
So what is really a positive disposition to recover? Many of the features of anorexia just will NOT go away if someone remains underweight. Cravings, depression, preoccupation with food and health risks do not go away if weight remains low. Many people want rid of the bad aspects of anorexia while continuing to have its benefits like staying abnormally thin. That’s not easy to work with. People will not want to look like you.
A “positive disposition” should include the desire to be free from compulsion to exercise, and the ability to eat a wide diet, with other people, and freedom from the constant chatter about what foods can and cannot be eaten. A positive disposition will include the desire to welcome the feeling of food inside your stomach. This will never be possible if weight is low.
Secretly though, I wonder how possible this kind of recovery really is – because all of these recovery outcomes are inconsistent with what gets someone into anorexia into the first place. The anorexic desire for simplicity, the fearfulness, the ascetic drives – are not features that can just “disappear”. These are aspects of personality which must persist forever. You cannot argue someone out of their basic personality.
So I’m not sure that I can demand a positive disposition to recover in what would suit me, and my expectations cannot be too high. I think that people and therapists must come to some sort of compromise with anorexia over what will be kept and what can go away for someone to live more happily. Experts might disagree with me.