Anorexia — Beyond the Symptom

Anorexia nervosa is a serious and potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterised by restricted food intake, intense fear of weight gain, and a profoundly distorted relationship with the body. But the symptom — the restriction, the weight — is not the disorder. It is the surface of something that runs considerably deeper.

What anorexia is doing

Anorexia almost always begins as a solution. Control over food and body in conditions where other forms of control feel unavailable. A sense of identity organised around achievement, discipline, and self-denial. A way of managing unbearable feelings by focusing instead on something concrete and measurable.

The disorder works — until it doesn’t. And by the time it stops working, it has become its own prison.

“Nobody develops anorexia because they want to be thin. They develop it because something in their life required them to disappear, to shrink, to take up less space — or because controlling the body was the only form of agency available to them. The work is to understand what that was.” — Philippe Jacquet

Anorexia in men

Philippe Jacquet holds a Doctorate of Professional Practice (DProf) — the only clinician in Europe to have completed doctoral research specifically on male eating disorders. Men account for approximately 25% of eating disorder cases but remain dramatically under-diagnosed, in part because anorexia is still culturally coded as a female illness. The presentation in men is often different. The treatment must be too.

Treatment

Effective treatment for anorexia requires attention to both the medical dimension and the psychological one. Philippe Jacquet works with clients in outpatient settings, offering intensive one-to-one treatment as an alternative to residential programmes.

Book a consultation with Philippe Jacquet — eating disorder specialist and psychotherapist, London.