Crisis refers to an exquisite tipping point that leads to instability and then returns to stability or becomes drastic and imaginable or unimaginable change. Therefore, a crisis can relate to any situation because any situation can change. The situation involved could be physical, emotional or mental. It could be imagined and perceived as happening or it could be real.

Understanding the Binge Response To understand an eating disorder binge response to crisis we must understand the person’s lived experience while she is in her precarious moment of instability and perhaps imminent change. It’s her inner lived experience, not the situation itself, that forces the binge response.

Focus is on understanding you and your internal world Our focus is not about a particular crisis, trigger foods, eating disorder behavior or a description of a binge/purge episode. The human being is the focus. You, your experience, what happens in your mind, heart, body and psyche is what’s important. What happens to you when your mind narrows to a binge beam and your body screams for immediate comfort and soothing is where we bring compassion, knowledge, sensitivity and caring attention.

Crisis Definitions: · An unstable situation of extreme danger or difficulty; "they went bankrupt during the economic crisis" · a crucial stage or turning point in the course of something; "after the crisis the patient either dies or gets better" · A crisis (plural: crises) may occur on a personal or societal level. It may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person's life, or an unstable and dangerous social situation, in political, social, economic, military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending abrupt change. More loosely, it is a term meaning 'a testing time' or 'emergency event'.

More to Come I’ll be exploring the questions around crises, what they are, how they are perceived, how and why a person with an eating disorder responds and what a person can do to respond with more health and skill in this six part post, “Eating Disorder Response to Crisis.”


Eating Disorders:  Response to Crisis

part 1  Overview  http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net/index.php/help-yourself/coping/263-response-to-crisis

part 2  http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net/index.php/help-yourself/coping/264-response-to-crisis-part-ii-of-vi

part 3  http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net/index.php/help-yourself/34-coping-strategies1/265-response-to-crisis-part-iii-of-vi

part 4  http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net/index.php/help-yourself/34-coping-strategies1/268-response-to-crisis-part-iv-of-vi

part  5  http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net/index.php/help-yourself/34-coping-strategies1/269-response-to-crisis-part-v-of-vi

part  6  http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net/index.php/help-yourself/34-coping-strategies1/271-response-to-crisis-part-vi-of-vi