What is the Pro-Ana Movement?

The pro-ana movement is the acronym for prο-anorexia, and it is important to note that there are a plethora of blogs, websites and forums where people suffering from anorexia, bulimia or other eating disorders and talk to one another and exchange views. They support anorexia and bulimia as they are not perceived as eating disorders, but simply as some eating habits.

 

In general, we find that there is no legal framework that prohibits anyone who wants to create a pro - ana website and even advertises it in various ways to attract as many visitors as possible. That is, we should make it clear that there is no formal or informal body, nor organization, since anyone can create a pro-ana blog freely. But these blogs and other social media sites can also contribute to anorexia nervosa, as people who engage in discussions often praise weight loss and somehow promote very thin bodies as role models, rather than healthy bodies with normal mass and muscle to fat ratio. The majority of these sites are flooded with photos of incredibly thin bodies making some of the visitors of these web pages feel overweight even though they are of normal weight and normal health. Also, this projection of extremely thin bodies and their admiration, leads some to think that they too must lose enough weight for others to admire them and become more beloved or famous!

Pro Ana is a lifestyle promoted via the internet, and it builds a virtual reality but also false beauty standards, as it aims to promote the idea and the view that the goal of all people should be to achieve a very low weight. In essence, pro-ana takes on the characteristics of a movement or a religion, as it rejects the scientific knowledge derived from the science of medicine, creating a new identity for visitors and members who take refuge on these sites, preferring to live in a virtual reality.

 

Some thoughts concerning this movement

The pro-ana movement as we can see is in stark contrast to the medically sound advice as well as the psychological treatment and support that people suffering from anorexia and bulimia should receive, especially for anorexia which may have very unpleasant effects on the general and psychological health of the individual which could even lead to death. So, these are not just simple disorders, but very serious disorders that one should not play with and people suffering from them should only turn to specialists such as nutritionists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Instead, we find that all of these sites look like a support community for those girls who are experiencing these eating disorders and who feel isolated and lonely, looking for ways to help but failing to do so. In fact, in order to make these disorders sound more attractive and less threatening, the people who handle these blogs and sites call anorexia and bulimia by human names as if they were humans, that is, they try to humanize these disorders, thus deconstructing and altering - distorting their characteristics and the truth around these disorders. We would say that this is a new fashion, a new trend of the time where emphasis is placed on the image of the individual, rewarding the supposed perfection of the very lean body.

 

 

Why would a girl choose Pro-Ana?

The site provides tips on how a person suffering from anorexia or bulimia could suppress the feeling of hunger. Ways are also suggested for how a person could hide for example their vomiting or some other practices that are routine for these people. All these blogs, websites and especially with the rapid development of social media, their information is transmitted in an incredibly fast way and to a very large number of people. Of course, there is no scrutiny for scientific sources, nor is the official scientific point of view presented anywhere, not even some nuggets of scientific controversy from the medical community. Of course, just by the names of these sites, one can easily understand what they are about and what their purposes are. Examples of such names are: "Hunger for Perfection", "2b-Thin" and "Anorexic Nation".

The proliferation of pro-ana websites would be said to reflect a symptom of the eating disorder itself as people suffering from anorexia and bulimia usually still visit these websites even though they cannot be helped. Perhaps the feeling of belonging to a community is stronger than the courage to stop lying to themselves and confronting the truth. It is outrageous that two such serious disorders are treated as a lifestyle, and therefore as a choice.

Sources:

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/anorexia-treatment/pro-ana#dangers-of-pro-ana-sites

https://www.nedc.com.au/research-and-resources/show/communicating-thin-a-grounded-model-of-online-negative-enabling-support-groups-in-the-pro-anorexia-movement

 

Kouravanas Nicholas & Papadopoulou Eleni, Psychologists, MSc.

Challenges a psychologist may face in exploring his/her own values, standards, and assumptions about human behavior…

What might prevent psychologist from valuing and respecting differences…?

 

There are many forms or types of human heterogeneity that constitute diversity such as gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, race, ethnicity, mental and physical ability, age and so on, which normally should shape for everyone and much more for psychologists an inclusive worldview. The fact that someone is a Mental Health specialist does not automatically mean that s/he has adopted an inclusive worldview, as there are several cases where even some psychologists get caught up in prejudices or even stereotypes towards certain categories of people or towards certain minority groups.

Sometimes, these biases and prejudices are taking place in our minds unconsciously, and this is why we should always have the fear that it is possible to act paternalistically, strictly, suspiciously, with arrogance or superiority and thereby hurt others unintentionally. For example, a psychologist during sessions might come across with a person who has a different religion and as a result s/he could realize that one of their practice or custom of the client may sound immoral such as the clitoridectomy or the marriage of teen girls in some countries and regions of Middle East. According to the worldview of the psychologist who grew up in a western country, such practices are not just immoral but also unacceptable.

If a helping professional wants not to be judgemental and getting rid of his/her bias, then s/he should try to have empathy in order to gain and show a better understanding of different points of view. Culture is always at the roof of communication’s challenges. This is happening, because our culture shapes the way we see the world (worldview), and the way we approach the other people. If we have a different culture, this means we don’t share common experiences and this makes it difficult to understand why other people have the one or the other behavior, stance or practice. So, we strongly believe, for having empathy, it is vital to be eager to know the culture of the other minority groups who live among us, in order to discover who they really are and stop making assumptions based on stereotypes. We need to remember that according to the “contact hypothesis” of Allport, the contact between people of different groups can lead to the reduction of prejudices under certain conditions. “Specifically, when individuals with negative attitudes toward specific groups find themselves in situations in which they engage in positive social interactions with members of those groups, their behavior is inconsistent with their attitudes…The contact hypothesis fundamentally rests on the idea that in-groups that have more interactions with a certain out-group tend to develop more positive perceptions and fewer negative perceptions of that out-group” (McLeod, 2023). 

 

 In conclusion, what a psychologist needs first of all to know, is to be aware that his/her worldview could become a “trap”, since s/he could impose his/her own worldview upon other less powerful groups. In other words, psychologist’s worldview might prevent him/her from valuing and respecting differences. Secondly, the psychologist should not afraid of contacting and/or try to be related to one another, since this is the key to opening channels for a better cross – cultural communication. 

 

Source:

 (Saul Mcleod, 2023). https://www.simplypsychology.org/contact-hypothesis.html, retrieved at 11:00 am, 5/28/23.

 

By Nicholas Kouravanas & Eleni Papadopoulou, Psychologists, MSc.

Reading: "All Families Are Psychotic"

The novel, entitled "All Families Are Psychotic", is the seventh novel by Douglas Coupland, and it was published in 2001. As the title suggests, this novel is a fantastic story of the dysfunctional Drummond family from Vancouver, where after many years of removal the members of this family will be reunited. The reason for the reunion is the huge success of daughter Sarah, who despite her disability caused by the administration of thalidomide to her mother during pregnancy, works at NASA and was to be "launched" into space as a cosmonaut!

 

A disability as severe as in the case of Sarah, who was born without an arm, we realize that it has adverse psychosomatic and emotional consequences for the person herself, especially when she knows that her life would be very different if her mother had not taken thalidomide. The cause of her disability is specific, in the sense that it has a name, also someone is responsible for her condition. The psychological state of people who have caused their own disability is very different, as they put the blame on themselves, than the case of people like Sarah who know that they are not responsible for their disability, as they focus their criticism on their situation to others and this can affect in a very negative way their relationship with beloved or very close people and keen to them, such as the mother or even the father. In fact, when there are siblings in the family, the comparison is more direct and the question that the sufferer must manage is: "why me?". Coupland creates a heroine who, despite her problem, does not give up, but is focused on her science, holds a doctorate and is ready for the most important moment in her career.

 

Coupland, in addition to the sensitive issue of disability, raises another issue that also affects the psychosomatic condition of the individual, and even more back then, the time the book was written where the treatment was not as successful as today. There are three characters with AIDS, mother Janet and her son Wade, as well as Nicky, father Ted's second wife, who had sex with Wade at an airport without knowing he was her legally adopted son. When Ted discovers that there was an "incestuous" encounter, he causes a major incident. In general, Ted is an abusive figure towards his sons, with whom he was always indignant, while towards his daughter he maintains an attitude of "worship" and unlimited sympathy since childhood. Ted is an alcoholic and therefore tyrannical and violent and sees his wife Nicki as a trophy.

We should not forget to note that a disease such as AIDS is not easily manageable, as the person struggles for a long period of time and in some cases it takes years until s/he manages to accept the special condition in which s/he is now and also gradually emerge issues that at first glance are not visible or conspicuous such as: "who would fall in love with a person with AIDS?" Fortunately, for Wade in a support group for people with infectious diseases, he met Beth, who as a former drug addict thought she had AIDS, which was not the case and eventually married her.

 

Brian, on the other hand, is the "stupid" child of the family, who always gets into troubles and is always entangled. Brian is in a relationship with Shw, whose parents had allowed her to choose her name at the age of 16, and because she hated vowels, she chose to call her that way. She became pregnant by Brian and is now in the dilemma of having an abortion or selling her child?

 

Things get even more complicated in this novel, especially from the point where Norm, Wade's occasional employer, is introduced to the plot. Norm is in possession of Lady Di's last letter and has found a buyer from the Bahamas, Florian, who is unscrupulous in getting what he wants. Coupland is a master at creating ruthless, uncivilized and without a trace of education characters, as well as stories set in mysterious or “bizarre” areas of America, such as Daytona Beach.

 

In this novel of Coupland, we find that the characters he has constructed meet one another under the most unusual coincidences, but deep down everyone is looking for truth and happiness. Coupland, describing characters that cover the spectrum of life of two generations of adults, makes some very apt remarks about life in general, where every action has its consequences, and nothing is so simple or so easy. Middle-aged Janet, evaluating her past, wonders what she has accomplished in her life so far, trying, albeit belatedly, to get out of her microcosm and spread her wings, while her children notice that they are unhappy anyway, they are in a dialogue with their identities, feeling that they have submitted to the roles imposed on them by society. The characters, then, deal with existential issues such as illness, death, addiction, bad family relationships, but also the complexity and wickedness of the world around them.

Τhe reader will surely look back on his/her own family, on whether and to what extent s/he is close or far from the other members, if there has been so much distance and alienation that something extraordinary will have to happen to them so as to bring them close again. Eventually, the reader will wonder about what a family is and how one member's expectations for the other shape the choices and route of each individual, but also all together, as a whole or a system, just like the system of communicating vessels. Eventually, even if each and every member has taken a different path, even when the family seems to have dispersed, there will always be thoughts of each other to fill in any gaps. In the end, more or less, with or without exaggeration, is it possible our family to be also psychotic?

 

Douglas Coupland. (2001). All Families Are Psychotic. Pilgrim Reader Books.

 

Kouravanas Nicholas- Papadopoulou Eleni, Psychologist,  MSc.