Therapists explain common causes of anorexia nervosa

by Stella Stathi

''One of the most consistent findings in anorexia sufferers, from a personality perspective, is the characteristic of perfectionism -you may have rigid, rather uncompromising, often exclusive focus on achieving particularly high goals that you set for yourself, and on being and appearing as 'the'best' at what you do. Thus, your body turns into another achievement and has to be formed into the 'perfect version' of itself, according to your perception. 

Perfectionism is characterised by a very 'black-and-white' way of thinking, which is reflected in the way you may classify different food types into 'good' and 'bad', and completely eliminate the bad ones from your diet, as well as in your unyielding intolerance of signs of body flesh that you perceive as fat. 

It is no coincidence that anorexia typically tends to affect over-achieving, highly successful girls and women, coming from families who greatly value and encourage these traits. ''

As featured in RSCPP's article, 'Therapists explain common causes of anorexia nervosa'. For the whole article, please click here: http://www.rscpp.co.uk/content/causes/causes-anorexia-nervosa.html.