Regaining Your Self

Never has there been a mental disorder so controversial in the theories surrounding its causes, treatments, and recovery than that of the eating disorder. Its mysterious nature, onset, and lack of predictability make this an elusive epidemic that causes frustration and fear in those who are afflicted and those who love and treat them. This is exactly why patients, families, and treatment professionals need to be privy to the observations of one of the foremost eating disorder specialists in the world and bestselling author of Dying to Be Thin, Ira M. Sacker, M.D.

In Regaining Your Self, Dr. Sacker explains the phenomenon of the Eating Disorder Identity and describes why this is the least identified concept in traditional treatment methods, yet most detrimental aspect of the disorder. Further, Sacker explains how in an attempt to substitute their former identity, many eating disorder patients adopt their eating disorder as a more acceptable definition of who they are; therefore blurring the lines between their disorder and their self. Like any thing that is viewed as intrinsic, the eating disorder becomes nearly impossible to cut off and turn away from.

To combat this crisis, Sacker lays out his effective program called PIRT or Personal Interaction Rational Therapy, which assists families, clinicians, medical doctors, and therapists in identifying the issue of identity (the lack of one, the disdain for the one they have) exhibited by patients and offers them techniques on replacing the eating disorder identity with a new and healthier one--the major component in facilitating recovery.