Altering women's relationships with food: a relational, developmental approach

Eating disorders, ranging from body-image distortions to full-blown anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, reflect developmental issues and significant deficits in feelings of self-efficacy. The relational model, an outgrowth of theoretical work specific to the psychology of women, is an appropriate treatment approach. This model appreciates the social context and pressures that foster disconnection from the self and helps the woman to reconnect with self and others, decreasing the need for obsessive control over food and weight. Treatment emphasizes empathy, connection, mutuality, and authenticity and views disconnections and disruptions as the predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating factors related to eating disorders. The client-therapist relationship is central to this model as demonstrated by a case illustration.