Anorexia and bulimia: new trends from the systemic perspective

Abstract

Authors underline that the new modalities of dealing with anorexia and bulimia, in the systemic field, are connected with two types of factors: the first concerns the epidemiological evolution of these disorders, (F.I. the current prevalence of bulimic troubles); the second concerns the profound epistemological renewal that, in the last 20 years, has been interesting the systemic perspective. This renewal has proposed new interpretations of the anorexic patients’ family, seen as a complex system in which multiple systemic levels are interconnected: a level of interaction models, a level of histories, in a trigenerational dimension, a level of myths (“myths of unity” and “phantoms of break-up”). Consequently even the therapeutic strategy has become more complex. A clinical example is presented which shows how, in this new perspective, the anorexic symptom is enriched by new meanings, and the therapeutic intervention becomes more complex and articulated, often using an analogical and metaphorical language (the “Sculptures of Family Time”). Finally the synthetic presentation of the preliminary data of a controlled clinical research, shows how, in the treatment of anorexia and bulimia, the best results are obtained with multidisciplinary and integrative therapeutic strategies (and therefore “systemic” in a large sense of the term).