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Seeking Lived Experience Stories Globally

Routledge Basics Book – Eating Disorders
Written by Professor Janet Treasure, Dr Lizzie McNaught and Jess Griffiths

The Basics is a highly successful series of accessible guidebooks which provide an overview of the fundamental principles of a subject area in a jargon-free and undaunting format.

Intended for students approaching a subject for the first time, the books both introduce the essentials of a subject and provide an ideal springboard for further study. With over 50 titles spanning subjects from Artificial Intelligence to Women’s Studies, The Basics are an ideal starting point for students seeking to understand a subject area.

Each text comes with recommendations for further study and gradually introduces the complexities and nuances within a subject.

Janet, Lizzie and Jess are writing a Routledge Basics book with the following chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Eating disorder overview
Chapter 3: Diversity in eating disorders
Chapter 4: Anorexia nervosa
Chapter 5: Bulimia nervosa
Chapter 6: Binge eating disorder
Chapter 7: Other specified feeding or eating disorder (OSFED)
Chapter 8: Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)
Chapter 9: Pica
Chapter 10: Rumination disorder
Chapter 11: The diagnostic process
Chapter 12: Treatment (psychological therapies, medication, acute/emergency care.
Chapter 13: Supporting someone living through an eating disorder (what family/friends can do)

Lived Experience Stories
Within each chapter a selection of real-life stories of those living through an eating disorder will be included, this may be in the form of a textbox. The stories will be told by a selection of people (of a variety of ages) living through an eating disorder, their families and loved ones (screened and selected by the authors) giving a range of different angles to describe the impact that these devastating disorders can have on people’s lives. There will be stories covering anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, other specified feeding or eating disorder, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, pica and rumination disorder.

Young people and their families will be given the chance, in telling their stories, to share what they wish other people had known, what was helpful in their journey and things to avoid when supporting those living through it.

These stories will be carefully screened and edited by the authors to ensure that no potentially triggering content will be used.

If you would like to share your journey through supporting a family member/friend with an eating disorder, we would like you to write your experience on no more than two sides of a4 paper.

If it helps, you could use the following questions as a framework:

  • If your loved one had a diagnosis/diagnoses – what was it/what were they?
  • How old were they when they had an eating disorder and how long did they have one for (they may still be on that journey)?
  • What was your loved one like pre diagnosis, and did anyone ever ask you about what their personality was like during treatment? Would it have been helpful to have been asked this?
  • What was it like when you first discovered your loved one had an eating disorder? What signs (if any) did you notice before and were you the person to recognise they had an eating disorder?
  • What treatment did your loved one receive and what was your journey through to accessing treatment? Did you get referred by a GP?
  • What support did you receive as a carer?
  • What were the hardest aspects of the journey?
  • What were the things you learned along the journey?
  • If you could go back in time and offer advice to a carer starting out in this journey, what would you say?
  • How do you approach your loved one now? What’s your relationship like?

Stories of Hope
To complete the book, we will have a range of self-written, letters of hope. These may be written by people who have, or are still, living through an eating disorder, their loved ones and professionals.

You can write these in any way you feel inspired to. You might like to inspire others by sharing how life can be so different in recovery and what that felt like for you as a parent/carer.

These letters will speak of the hope that all can find in eating disorder recovery.

Deadline
Contributions need to be sent by 7th April to Jess Griffiths office@jessgriffiths.co.uk
We will ask you to complete a form where you consent for us to use your lived experience story/information within the book.

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