Når maden som medicin ikke er medicin nok

Schrøder, Nina ; Knudsen, Celina Kassow ; Lindstrøm, Trine Balser

4. semester

Socialt Arbejde, Kandidat

2017

2017-08-01

This thesis contains a theoretical approach in which it aims to investigate: What kind of treatment is expressed through the different participants perspectives in the social work with the girls previously suffering from an eating disorder in the region of Northern Jutland? This thesis takes a hermeneutic approach to the generation of knowledge because of our interpretive starting point. This has influenced our research methods, approaches and strategy of analysis. By using a hermeneutic method of research, we allow the theoretical and empirical material to speak for themselves, which is why the analysis in this thesis are based on themes, which originates from the interviewed informers. The informers interviewed in this thesis are three girls previously suffering from an eating disorder, the chief physician of ‘Enhed for Spiseforstyrrelser’ (Unit for Eating Disorders) and two social workers from a social residence in the Northern Jutland. Furthermore we have interviewed three workers from local municipalities by telephone. In the first section of this thesis, we found through David M. Garner, that there are different ways and reasons of developing an eating disorder. However, it is common for the three girls interviewed in this thesis that they all tried to hide their identity as a person suffering from an eating disorder, they all tried to live up to the expectation from the society, themselves and their surroundings. Furthermore the thesis found that the mantra of the psychiatric treatment was that nutrition is the medicine. However, we conclude that there is a need of qualification and improvement in the social work with girls suffering from an eating disorder. According to Erving Goffman, ‘Enhed for Spiseforstyrrelser’ (Unit for Eating Disorders) can be characterized as a total institution. The need of improvement in the social work with girls suffering from an eating disorder, come into sight because the girls all express that they feel neglected and violated in the total institution and they feel that the focus on nutrition is above all. Moreover, when the girls are at a certain weight they are signed out from the total institution and they feel lost in the society with nobody to help them. Here we found that the girls are left to fend for themselves since they are too well to stay at the hospital, but yet they are too sick to act in the society. However, through the interviews with the local municipalities we found that there are no initiatives and re-entry to the society for girls coming from ‘Enhed for Spiseforstyrrelser’ but there certainly is a need for one. Thus, the thesis concludes that nutrition as medicine is not medicine enough, but instead there is a need for a much more holistic social work.

Spiseforstyrrelser

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