The person I have chosen to study is one with a case of anorexia nervosa; “a disorder marked by the pursuit of extreme thinness and by extreme weight.” (Comer 266). For the purpose of this paper, I will refer to this person by the name “Sally”. Sally’s parent’s divorced before she was the age of two, her mother stayed in Nebraska while her father traveled around the world. After the divorce, her mother began to gain weight and eventually became obese. Sally would visit her father every summer in whatever country he was in at the moment; Canada, England, Thailand, etc. He always had a new girlfriend every time she would visit who all had the same physique; tall and slender, the model type. Her father would comment on her appearance and tell
…show more content…
After seeing her mother gain so much weight and seeing her father with slender girlfriends, she decided that she needed to be thin and started to diet. Once she began to shed some pounds and fell below her particular weight set point, her lateral hypothalamus was activated causing her to become preoccupied with the thought of food. She began to see any thought of hunger, activated by her lateral hypothalamus from dieting, as a sign of weakness and that eating any food was giving in so she would not eat anything at all. New brain imaging techniques have also shown that those who suffer from anorexia nervosa have some level of dysfunction in the ventral and the dorsal neural circuits, which is related to altered serotonin and dopamine metabolism. Many people with anorexia nervosa have been found to measure low in serotonin activity. Dopamine is also an important factor, it could be that Sally has an altered striatal dopamine function which contributes to an optimal response to reward stimuli; rewarding herself and feeling proud for not giving into her body’s hunger cues. Biological theorists would also most likely point out that her eating disorder could possibly be caused by genetics. It may be that after her mother divorced she became depressed and began suffering from binge eating disorder leading to her …show more content…
Because her parents were divorced, Sally did not see her father often and her mother may have been too busy as a single parent to effectively attend to her child’s needs. Her mom may have given her the wrong feedback for certain emotions, such as feeding her when she’s upset or comforting her when she was tired. Because of this ineffective parenting style, Sally became confused, unaware of internal needs, and unable to identify emotions correctly. As she grew older, Sally felt a lack of control over her life because she was unable to perceive internal cues correctly therefore she began relying excessively on others for approval. Worried about how others viewed her and unable to identify her own emotions, Sally started obsessing over her appearance and restricting her food intake leading her to develop anorexia nervosa. Cognitive theorists would likely agree with psychodynamic theories that Sally had ineffective parenting growing up and was unable to properly label her emotions. They would argue that because Sally feels as though she has little control over her life she has an extreme desire to feel in control over something, which ultimately has turned out to be her body figure. The inability to identify her emotions and her desire to feel in control of her body led her to have distorted thinking and views of her appearance
After seeing her mother gain so much weight and seeing her father with slender girlfriends, she decided that she needed to be thin and started to diet. Once she began to shed some pounds and fell below her particular weight set point, her lateral hypothalamus was activated causing her to become preoccupied with the thought of food. She began to see any thought of hunger, activated by her lateral hypothalamus from dieting, as a sign of weakness and that eating any food was giving in so she would not eat anything at all. New brain imaging techniques have also shown that those who suffer from anorexia nervosa have some level of dysfunction in the ventral and the dorsal neural circuits, which is related to altered serotonin and dopamine metabolism. Many people with anorexia nervosa have been found to measure low in serotonin activity. Dopamine is also an important factor, it could be that Sally has an altered striatal dopamine function which contributes to an optimal response to reward stimuli; rewarding herself and feeling proud for not giving into her body’s hunger cues. Biological theorists would also most likely point out that her eating disorder could possibly be caused by genetics. It may be that after her mother divorced she became depressed and began suffering from binge eating disorder leading to her …show more content…
Because her parents were divorced, Sally did not see her father often and her mother may have been too busy as a single parent to effectively attend to her child’s needs. Her mom may have given her the wrong feedback for certain emotions, such as feeding her when she’s upset or comforting her when she was tired. Because of this ineffective parenting style, Sally became confused, unaware of internal needs, and unable to identify emotions correctly. As she grew older, Sally felt a lack of control over her life because she was unable to perceive internal cues correctly therefore she began relying excessively on others for approval. Worried about how others viewed her and unable to identify her own emotions, Sally started obsessing over her appearance and restricting her food intake leading her to develop anorexia nervosa. Cognitive theorists would likely agree with psychodynamic theories that Sally had ineffective parenting growing up and was unable to properly label her emotions. They would argue that because Sally feels as though she has little control over her life she has an extreme desire to feel in control over something, which ultimately has turned out to be her body figure. The inability to identify her emotions and her desire to feel in control of her body led her to have distorted thinking and views of her appearance