Re: Treating Addiction

I recognise and accept the processes you have described in treating addiction where addiction involves substance or alcohol abuse.

I am interested however in whether the problem of obesity in the Western world could be considered to a large part as addiction to food and whether there are any lessons which might be learnt from treatment of other addictions. I am obviously assuming here that we are not dealing with obesity as a result of specific medical problems. I wonder if it could be true to say that overeating in many cases is an attempt to fill a sense of emptiness, similar to that experienced by other additions, where the client has attempted to replace an emotional emptiness with a perceived physical emptiness. It is generally recognised that there is a "comfort" factor attained from certain foods which seems to lend credance to my theory.

Adlerian counselling seems to me to be a good discipline for this firstly because it deals with the whole individual and his relation to the "community" and secondly it works not through blame but primarily through encouragement.

Whilst I accept that the most effective therapeutic solution for any disorder is the sense of "feeling of community" - of accepting the encouragement of others and then becoming a person who helps others, I must say that I don’t think this can be achieved before a person has a concrete sense of "self" and acceptance of "self".

Henry, I am most interested on your thoughts on this slight digression.

Replies:

Re: Problem of Obesity, by Henry Stein, 5/15/97

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