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Matthew Campling says the correct approach to beating anorexia is ‘psychological and physiological’ |
‘Anorexics can win food battle’
Former sufferer says self-help is the only effective way to treat eating disorder
ANOREXIA is an illness that provokes strong reactions. But when it comes to treatment the options are underwhelming.
That is the opinion of one former anorexic, whose own love-hate relationship with food has been the inspiration for a book that turns conventional wisdom on eating disorders on its head.
Matthew Campling – an agony uncle turned psychotherapist – hopes his book Eating Disorder Self-Cure: The Matthew Method will be a lifeline for people who feel let down by mainstream approaches.
“Being with someone who is anorexic can be a terrifying experience and the obvious reaction is to try and break down their willpower and force-feed them,” says Matthew.
“But in the long term this doesn’t treat the problem. It alienates the sufferer and can be dangerously self-defeating. My theory combines the psychological and physiological, focusing on understanding the illness as an emotional response to something much deeper.”
Matthew honed his theories in South Africa, where as a young child he was traumatised by the horrors he witnessed during apartheid. He found sanctuary in eating and, ballooning to 15 stone, he self-medicated by starving himself until he was just six stone.
“I was constantly dieting so I wouldn’t get fatter,” says Matthew. “I would exercise for hours on end. Sometimes I would black out. My abiding memory of that period is being unbelievably isolated and feeling like no one understood. The only help on offer was shock therapy or being admitted to a psychiatric ward so I ended up finding my own way out.”
After 10 years as a high-profile agony uncle and a two-year sabbatical trying to break Hollywood, Matthew returned to his first profession – psychotherapy.
“I remember being at the Cannes Film Festival and instead of talking about films all I was talking about was food,” said Matthew.
“It was very surreal. I realised I was wasting my time and went back to what I knew and loved. The book was the next logical step because although there is a lot of literature on the subject, there are almost no self-help books.”
In the UK, eating disorders are more prolific than at any time, and, although Matthew is careful not to rubbish the status quo, he makes no bones about it, his strategy gets results.
Going it alone is
the cornerstone of Matthew’s method, which draws on varied influences from East Asian philosophy to psychotherapy.
Sufferers are enabled to disentangle the disorder for themselves and understand it for what it really is.
“The response has been incredible,” says Matthew. “I’ve had people who have been battling with eating disorders for 20 years ringing me up to say thankyou.
“The thing is this book is not just aimed at sufferers. It’s also for medical professionals and therapists – who I hope take on board some of my theories – as well as friends and family of sufferers who will be better informed to cope.”
The book is novel in another way. It makes a link between anorexia and obesity.
“My theory says anorexia and obesity stem from the same underlying disorder,” says Matthew. Most people think people who are overweight know nothing about food, but the truth is most of them know exactly what they’re eating – they just can’t stop. My approach offers something different from dieting which only focuses on diet and exercise.”
Matthew continues to see patients in his Barnsbury home, but hopes the book will provide the impetus to set up a new recovery unit faithful to his theories.
He is also offering six readers aged 18-45, who suffer with eating disorders a free 10-week course of group therapy.
Email Matthew at campling.m@gmail.com
or matthew@eatingdisorderself-cure.com to sign up.
The course will be run from a central London location and will consist of 10 weekly
two-hour sessions.
Read more on Matthew’s strategies at www.eatingdisorderself-cure.com
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