Customer Reviews

Nutrition Counseling in the Treatment of Eating Disorders

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As a student of nutrition/dietetics and as a girl who has had anorexia & bulimia for about 5 years, I found this text to be insightful, motivational, and practical. It helped me see how all the nutrition info and diet guidelines I have learned as a student REALLY DO apply to ME, even though I have an eating disorder. Thinking about diet therapy, eating patterns, and other food-related behaviors from a clinical perspective has helped me step outside myself and get a clearer view of my own behaviors. The book has helped me trust my body more and be more willing to experiment with dietary changes.

This book really emphasizes the fact that Registered Dietitians treating eating disordered patients cannot double as psychotherapists but must have a strong background in psychology to be successful. Food and eating is so central to our being. All nutritionists need to be aware of the psychological reasonings behind food behaviors (especially with eating disorders!!!) so that do-able dietary advise can be given.

What I learned from this book will make me a much better RD for all nutritional problems! I think all dietetics students should read this book.

This book provides the information that Registered Dietitians need when working with patients struggling with eating disorders. It fills in the gap between a dietitians' final internship and years of hands on experience. Marcia understands what information patients need and how to deliver it. The tone of the book is right on, helping the reader understand the supportive educational role that dietitians should provide. I wish I wrote it first!

Marcia Herrin's book is an excellent resource for anyone who treats people suffering from eating disorders. I have encouraged everyone on our Eating Disorder Treatment Team (doctors, nurses, therapists) to read it as well as my other colleagues and interns. She addresses the importance of understanding the nutritional components of ED as well as the psychological components in the treatment process.

Hello Marcia,
I am a nutritionist somewhat new to the field of eating disorders (2004). I am re-reading your treatment manual for the second time. I find it such a useful tool. I was just moved to let you know how wonderful it is to receive this information.
When I am in doubt, your book sets me straight.
Thank you for putting all this out there.

As a psychologist in practice, in picking up this book on nutrition counseling by a nutrition expert, I was expecting psychotherapy to be accorded its usual short shrift and after-thought status that seems so common for the nutritional literature on eating disordrs. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only is the book calling for a non-nominal coordination of nutritional and psychological disciplines, the nutritional angle itself is presented with an extraordinary degree of psychological savvy.

Case in point: in addition to the coverage of various psychological treatment paradigms, the book offers process suggestions for nutritional counselors on managing self-disclosure, splitting, idealization, countertransference. The first two chapters are smartly subdivided into basic nutritional counseling (more educational in scope) and advanced nutrtional counseling that integrates nutritional counseling and psychotherapy.

While empirically authoritative and technically comprehensive, the book is also highly pragmatic. Dr. Herrin continuously offers direct speech suggestions of how to pitch a certain educational theme or tid-bit to a prospective client. Throughout the book, the reader keeps stumbling upon highly practical counseling gems that begin with "explan this" or "you might want to say this." This pragmatic refrain helps the reader to pause and translate the material into hypothetical counseling exchanges.

I particularly appreciated the no-nonsense harm-reduction orientation of the book: this is most evident in the discussion of normalizing the relationship with "fun foods," as well as in the discussion of managing binge-eating through paradoxical harm-reduction binge-schedulng alternatives.

The "intervention" core of the book, consisting of the following five chapters, is impeccable: "Weight Management," "Managing Weight Restoration" (a euphemism for "weight gain/weight normalization"), "Managing Binge Eating," "Managing Purging," and "Exercise Management."

Herrin's amazingly effective: page for page she offers tremendous informational density - without (!) creating a sense of informational satiation. Her narrative style feels light but never superficial. Her handling of the medical repercussions of purging is a wonderful example of that: in the span of just a few pages, Herrin manages to provide a panoramic overview of dental, electrolyte, cardiac, GI and other types of medical complications that can result from purging.

She offers a similarly effective overview of misuse of veganism/vegetarianism (as a socially sanctioned cover for restrictive eating), of eating pregnancy, and of other "special issues." She offers an extensive Appendix with forms, tables and handouts (check out Appendix E - "Recovery Plan" for binge-prevention and post-binge damage control).

In sum, the book seems to round out the respective educational-professional fortes of nutritional and psychological counselors. Nutritional counselors stand to learn more about the counseling aspect of nutritional counseling and psychologists working with eating disorders stand to learn more about the nutritional nuts and bolts of the eating disorder presentations that might otherwise be left unattended in the guilt-shame shade of client's ego-saving defenses.

Herrin's "Nutrition Counseling" is an excellent continued education cross-trainer!

Pavel Somov, Ph.D., Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, 2008)

Having seen the outcomes of this approach to eating disorders first hand and having to undo its effects at a great personal & financial cost today, i urgue you to look elsewhere.