Cognitive Therapy Free

It's a guy thing, too

Christopher R. Skarinka had heard of eating disorders, of course. Every college student had by the early 2000s, when Skarinka started school. But nearly every college kid, like most everyone else, also thought of eating disorders as a female problem. Not a problem for a buff, 6-foot-5-inch guy like himself.

Yet by the time Skarinka graduated from Harvard, in 2007, he was addicted to making himself purge. He wasn’t worried about his weight. He just liked the sense of control that purging gave him.

Looking back now, Skarinka says he was deeply unhappy. He coped with the stress of a high-pressure school and then a higher-pressure investment banking job by exerting control over one of the few things he could control: what he ate.

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Eating disorders have long been considered a female problem, but a 2007 Harvard study based on national survey data found that men are one-third as likely as women to have anorexia or bulimia and more than half as likely to have a binge eating disorder. A study this summer of adolescents found even closer rates of bulimia and identical rates of anorexia between teenage boys and girls.

It’s not clear why it’s taken so long to recognize male eating disorders. It may be that men have a harder time acknowledging problems, or that society has been more accepting of men being overweight or of eating big meals. Or perhaps the rates have been rising as popular culture increasingly celebrates perfect male physiques the way it has long lionized women’s figures.

No one has done the research to find out what’s behind male eating disorders, said Ruth Striegel of Wesleyan University, where she is Walter A. Crowell Professor of Social Sciences and professor of psychology. A renowned eating disorder researcher, Striegel published a study last month calling for more men to be included in binge eating disorder research.

Free Cognitive Therapy Example (Disputing Thoughts Technique for ...

This is example of a Disputing Thoughts Record – a common cognitive therapy technique.

This is my version of a technique called ABCDE.

ABCDE Disputing Thoughts Record Example

Let’s go through a complete (fictional) example.

Example

Situation:

You have lost a library book and it’s now 3 months overdue. You can’t get any books out.

A stands for Adversity.

Means: The trigger.

Example: Your therapist suggests a book you might like to read as part of your therapy. You feel embarrassed so you don’t mention your library situation, even to your therapist.

B stands for Belief.

Means: The negative thought you want to work on.

Example:

“What am I going to do? I probably have a massive fine. If I talk to someone at the library they’re going to tell me off like I’m a child, or they might call debt collectors.”

C stands for Consequences of Believing the Negative Thought.

Means: How does believing the negative thought affect your emotions, your thoughts about yourself, and your thoughts about the future?

Example: You feel anxious. You have a sense of the world being hostile to you and of never doing anything right.

D Stands for Disputing

Means: What might alternative thoughts be?*

Examples:

- “People must lose library books all the time.”

- “I’m expecting other people to judge me negatively for making a mistake but maybe they won’t. Maybe even librarians and therapists have lost library books. By not mentioning this to my therapist, I’ve lost the potential opportunity to get a supportive reaction and to talk about problem solving. My therapist is likely to get confused about why I’m not displaying interest in reading the book that seems relevant to my problems. It’s understandable to want to hide and avoid in response to shame and anxiety but it’s not very helpful.

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