Eating disorders are the deadliest of mental illnesses and not expressions of vanity or desire for thinness gone too far. Eating disorders are the deadliest of mental illnesses and not expressions of vanity or desire for thinness gone too far. Unfortunately, this is what those with anorexia, anorexia bulimia and bulimia are vulnerable to… Read More

  Hunger, Food and the Body are Symbolically Loaded with our Human History. Hunger, food and the body are symbolically loaded with our human history. So too is gender, place, culture, family and the person with an eating disorder’s specific formative experiences. While hunger, food and the body are simple in that each is necessary… Read More

  Eating Disorders and Death Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses. Those suffering from this condition often lose themselves to it long before they lose their lives. Like all addicts they become a slave to the rules and needs of what it is they are addicted to, mechanically passing through… Read More

Psychologist, Dr Anita Johnson discusses why ‘eating disorders have nothing and everything to do with food and the body’ in lectures, interviews and her book, Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationship with Food Through Myths, Metaphors, and Storytelling (2000). Since the early 1980’s, she has worked predominately with… Read More

  The hero like the warrior is a figure of action, willpower, courage and purpose. S/he lives by his/her core values. The actions of a warrior are aligned with his/her higher self and what s/he stands for regardless of opposition, rejection, failure, judgement and setbacks. In Dan Millman’s creative non-fiction novel, ‘Way of the Peaceful… Read More

Archetypes, Myths and Guides Central to this article and previous posts is the idea that post-traumatic growth potentially results from unconscious complex trauma content becoming consciously integrated into one’s self-narrative through fiction. The question explored is whether or not writing and reading trauma fiction participates in facilitating post-traumatic growth and if so why use this… Read More

Using Story to Process the Emotional Experience of Complex Trauma The purpose of fiction and storytelling is to give the reader or listener an emotional experience. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)  is the undigested emotional experience. Post-traumatic growth is what is possible after such an emotional experience is processed and integrated. The findings from the interdisciplinary… Read More

In fiction, the story of how complex childhood trauma effects adult life is at liberty to find the most effective representation for psychological and emotional truth because it is not strictly limited by non-fiction’s arguably allegiance to facts; memory; case studies; research or clinical theorisation. All of these elements can be used to inform the… Read More

In the first third of Sapphire’s novel Push (2009), Precious is propelled into action and set up to experience subsequent obstacles and lessons in the middle which function to significantly change her by the end. For example in the middle, Precious experiences a coming-to-awareness that trauma does not have to affect her adult life, even… Read More