Customer Reviews

Psychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in Context

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In "Psychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in Context," Salvador Minuchin and his co-authors argue that anorexia nervosa is not a neurosis that is limited to an isolated individual. On the contrary, they argue that anorexia belongs to an ailing social structure--specifically, that of the family. Minuchin's analyses of a variety of family therapy sessions both support this claim and reveal a number of communication patterns that are typically found in anorectic families--such as enmeshment, excessive tendencies to nurture or protect, and the failure to acknowledge or address emotional claims. Minuchin offers a unique and compelling analysis of anorexia nervosa that will be of interest to those who are studying or treating the neurosis as well as to those who are struggling with anorexia nervosa in their own lives.

Recommended for those in the Helping Professions especially those working with Families as Family Counselors/Therapists from one on the intellectual giants in the field Salvador Minuchin whose genius becomes apparent as a change agent during his Therapy Sessions .

Nestor Mantilla

I read this book back in graduate school, and, knowing nothing then about living with an adolescent with anorexia, it seemed to me to be a perfectly fine text. However, now we've crossed over that bridge, and saw this develop in our daughter regardless of how we tried to prevent it.

Blaming the parents is toxic, unhelpful, and thoughtless. Assigning causality (and thus blame) to traits you find in families going through these difficult situations when you should recognize that correlation is not the same as causality is really toxic. We no longer talk about the "schizophrenigenic" parent, and it is cruel to blame parents for their children developing a brain disease or disorder.