Monday, November 26, 2012

Anorexia Blog



Today in class we watched a movie about Emily, a young woman suffering from anorexia. In the documentary we watched Emily's daily life and the struggles that she has been fighting for the past 8 years. Using the information that you learned today in class about drive reduction theory explain how Emily reduces the drive of feeling overweight and restores her body back to homeostasis in her mind. Use specific examples in your answer and make sure you explain drive reduction theory. Also explain how a drug addict and Emily's battle with anorexia are similar and different. Also, tell me what Emily's drug is. 
Please answer all the questions to receive full credit.DUE Friday 11:59pm

19 comments:

  1. In the world of motivation, one realizes what he or she needs biologically and goes to whatever lengths to fix whatever he/she perceives to be his/her need. This is in essence the basis for the drive reduction theory. In greater detail, people often try to achieve a state of balance in their life by correcting whatever they consider to be out of order. If people notice that they are tired, they will most of the time take a nap or lay down for a while to restore their strength. If they feel extremely sick, they will find some way to relieve the pain. With Emily in Intervention, she feels unbalanced in that she sees herself as being drastically overweight (even though she is not), and she tries with all that she is to fix her perception by eating hardly anything, disposing of the food by laxatives, and completing a vigorous exercise plan. In her mind, unless she sees herself as skinny and not obese, she must continue to fight her drive, even if it leads to her death. She stays tense as long as she does not do anything about her “weight problem.” Her anorexia is based off of the drive, or tense feeling aroused by biological needs, she feels on the inside to reduce her weight. She cannot see that her loss is killing her because she feels as if her happiness and peace depends on her fulfilling a reduction of her distorted drive, leading to her emaciating herself. She lets her mind trick her into thinking this.
    In relation to a drug addict, Emily is similar in that she is addicted to achieving total homeostasis in her desire to feel perfectly skinny. Like many drug addicts, she was triggered into this addiction by painful experiences in the past. She grew up under harsh and condescending parents and was brutally raped in college; and in an attempt to fight off the pain, like many drug addicts, she turns to the high of feeling perfectly and wholly balanced in her image. She may not be addicted to an actual physical drug like those involved in substance dependence, but the effect is the same. She cannot leave what she has started; she is dependent on the high of feeling “beautiful” and “attractive” in her own eyes, completing the absence of balance she feels in her ordinary life. Although one may think that her drug is attaining an unreasonably skinny and fatless picture of herself, her true drug is a distorted version of homeostasis. She is addicted to an exaggerated form of this bodily feeling, as she feels well when she achieves balance with her weight. She also may incur serious health problems, like substance drug addicts, such as heart failure and irregular heartbeat. A major difference between her addiction and those of substance dependants, besides the fact that their addiction is based on a substance and not a bodily function, is that her treatment is much more difficult. For substance dependants, rehabilitation includes detoxification and then separation from the drug (including a learning process about how to not feel like needing it anymore). For Emily, however, she must convince herself that she needs to achieve homeostasis through a normal body weight, one where she is healthy and truly beautiful, not based off of unreasonable expectations of others.

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  2. Emily has been battling anorexia for over 8 years. She eats as little as 800 calories a day and has been reduced to skin and bones. The Drive reduction theory is described as behavior that that is motivated by an attempt to restore balance within the body by reducing the thing that causes tension. This normally functions when a person is hungry, they eat to satisfy the hunger they are feeling. Emily is motivated by the need to feel skinny and not over weight. She also experiences body dimorphia; when she looks in the mirror, even though she is emaciated, she sees herself as overweight and fat. She abuses the drive reduction theory by instead if satisfying the hunger she feels, she doesn’t eat in order to suppress her feelings about her weight. In her mind, balance isn’t found in being at a healthy weight, it’s in being as skinny as she can possibly be and still be alive. Instead of being addicted to a drug like heroine, Emily is addicted to being skinny.
    Just as an addict has a trigger that causes their addiction, such as a lack of a father figure, abuse, or divorced parents, behavioral addicts experience the same triggers. Emily is an identical twin, Tiffany, and had always competed with her. Emily felt her sister was better than her which contributed to her anorexia. Even now that they don’t live together, Emily still feels jealous and overshadowed by her sister. While Emily was in college, her parents get divorced and she was raped at a party. She had so much emotional pain in her life that she coped with it by not eating. This gave her something she could control considering she couldn’t control the way her sister acted, getting raped, or her parent’s divorce. This addiction does not come with the dangerous life style that surrounds drug usage and dealing, but this lifestyle can destroy a person’s health the same way a drug can. The only way Emily can kick this addict is getting treatment and counseling to fix her distorted view of balance and beauty.

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  3. In this latest episode of A&E’s hit reality drama, Intervention, the focus is on Emily, a young woman battling anorexia, which has been in control of her life for the past eight years. The driving force that causes her particular addiction to linger for such an extensive period of time is the powerful psychological distortion of her own body and social status; thus forcing her to only make note of the nonexistent imperfections, both physical and societal, that constantly haunt her, such as body fat and the origins of her deteriorating family connections. The way that Emily copes with her pain is through a psychological theory called the Drive Reduction Theory. The Drive Reduction Theory is commonly known as a motivated behavior conducted in order to attempt to reduce a certain unpleasant tension within one’s body back to the controlled and balanced state of homeostasis. Simple examples of this theory in action include individuals eating to resolve their hunger and drinking in order to quench their thirst; although in Emily’s case, this theory is somewhat reversed. Emily does not eat or drink in order to balance herself out and restore her body to a comfortable state of homeostasis; instead she does not eat or drink anything at all and works out up to three hours a day. Emily’s mind is so distorted that it has somewhat trained her physical body to only feel as if it is balanced when on a completely empty stomach. Even though anorexia is considered an illness it is still an addiction. Much like the probable origins of one’s substance addiction, Emily’s anorexia is originated from a history of unnecessary hardships and happenstances that are unresolved. Emily’s negative self perception stems from the sibling rivalry between her and her twin sister, the desire for rebellion against her overly controlling mother, the unexpected divorce of her parents and the horrifying nature of her first sexual experience. These factors all contributed to the pain and turmoil that Emily began to experience on a day to day basis. Emily began to feel rejected by her family due to her shameful sexual encounter. She also began to increasingly resent her twin sister, who Emily accuses of having had a perfect upbringing and has always seemed to cast a shadow, in which Emily abides in. In order for her to improve herself and have something that was, “Just hers,” Emily began to diet more in hopes of obtaining a figure that would make her stand out. Like substance abuse, the physical abuse of her body soon developed into a daily routine; which obviously evolved into a cycle of addiction. Although Emily’s addiction is behavioral, which normally has no effect on one’s health, an increased state of anorexia has extreme health risks; much like that of drug addiction. Anorexia is an addiction that also may affect one’s lifestyle, which includes family and job disruption. This young woman is not snorting, shooting or swallowing a substance to ease her pain, but she is however using a “drug” in order to get some form of a “high” (so to speak). Emily’s drug is exercise and starvation, which help her maintain a sense of control, sanity, and self appreciation. The positive self perception she experiences while exercising or dieting is the key to acquiring the high she is searching for. Anorexia is an extremely dangerous behavioral addiction to get involved in and can result in many health problems, as well as death.

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  4. Emily has anorexia. She has been struggling with this disease for 8 years. She had many triggers to cause her to feel the need to be skinny. It sets her apart for one. Growing up, Emily and her twin Tiffany have been very competitive. Basically everything they do is a competition. Tiffany was the more dominant of the two twins and made Emily feel inferior whether she knew it or not. Emily always felt like she was in Tiffany’s shadow. On top of that, she had a very controlling mom and her dad was never involved in her life unless she was winning an award. If they did not do something well, they got punished. Emily went into a depression when she got to college. Not long after she went to college, her parents got divorced. When at a party, she was drugged and raped by more than one guy. That was when she lost her virginity. She was in a lot of pain after that, physical and mental. She started dieting and eventually started eating only half and apple and 75 laxatives a day. Emily embraced her disorder because it was something that set her apart and was only hers. When she gets hungry, she does not eat. The drive reduction theory is the theory that states that motivated behavior is an attempt to reduce the unpleasant tension inside of the body to a state of homeostasis. Emily looks at food and smells food but ignores her body’s signals to eat and starves herself. She is too concentrated on being skinny to eat. She finds pleasure in watching someone else eat but refuses to herself. Emily feels accomplished if she can make it until the late afternoon or evening before she eats or drinks. Usually when she eats, she has coffee and a piece of fruit. In all, she consumes about 800 calories per day. However, when she does eat more, she makes a game out of her making and eating the food. She counts how many times she breaks the lettuce apart and eats certain numbers of certain foods in a certain order. Competing with Tiffany all of her life has caused her to feel the need to have a competition with her food. Emily enjoys anything that she feels control over since she does not have much control over anything in her life. She knows she has a problem, but she does not want to change it. She looks at herself in the mirror, and even though people can see basically every bone on her, she sees that she has a gut and does not want people to look at her and think that she does have a gut.
    Emily’s drug is feeling beautiful. She feels best mentally when she does not eat no matter what her hunger and physical body is telling her. She has a skewed version of homeostasis in which she tells her body that she is not hungry and ignores the body trying to tell her otherwise. Although she is not consuming a drug, she still can be harmed like any drug user could be in ways such as heart failure and even death. Her messed up home situation mentioned above were the triggers that caused her to live the way she does, with this mental disease. Similar to substance abuse, Emily has made her abuse her body and its ability to consume food. This resulted in an addiction to remain skinny as well as a competition with herself to resist eating as long as she physically can. She is able to accept that she has a problem and needs to gain some wait, but she can not act on that fact without some help. It is a mental game that could some day cause death.

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  5. The episode we watched was about a girl named Emily who is addicted to starving herself so she can be thin. She only eats about 800 calories a day and doesn’t include any meat, dairy, or anything else besides low calorie vegetables/ fruits in her diet. She is obsessed with maintaining the weight that she thinks is acceptable. Her view of what is acceptable is distorted due to many factors that happened to her in her past. While she was growing up, she had an identical twin sister that she felt she was constantly competing with. Her twin, Tiffany, was seen as the successful twin and Emily felt bad in comparison. She felt she couldn’t live up to her sister. This continued even through college, and it didn’t help matters when her parents got divorced. Shortly after, she had a terrible encounter with a group of men and was brutally raped. Her self-worth dropped after this incident and she didn’t tell anybody about it for year. These triggers shaped her addiction into what it is now. In order to deal with the intense amount of stress and anxiety she lives with, she punishes herself by not eating. Drive- reduction theory states that motivated behavior is an attempt to reduce the unpleasant tension inside the body to a state of homeostasis, or a state of equilibrium. Her addiction helps her balance out her tensions from her past. She feels it is something she can control, which she values. She feels like she had never been able to control much before, due to her control freak mother. By starving herself, she feels comforted and in control of her life. In her mind, she is not seen as too skinny and emaciated. She sees herself as acceptable. Most of the time. Other times, she feels she is still too fat. Any extra weight on her stomach she sees as an eye sore. All of the fat must be gone, so in order to get rid of the “weight” she diets and exercises even more. This is very damaging to her health, but she doesn’t see it that way.

    Emily’s addiction is a lot like a drug addiction. It started with a horrible experience in her past. These experiences led her to find an outlet to her problems. She can’t resist the way the drug (in this case, anorexia) makes her feel. It makes her feel comforted and accepted for a little while, but she is hooked on this outlet, which makes it an addiction. Unlike substance addiction, Emily is not addicted to a substance. She is addicted to a way of thinking. She thinks she’s not acceptable, so she gains the feeling of acceptance by trying to make herself into the image of what she thinks is attractive or perfect.

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  6. The intervention we watched was about a girl named Emily who chooses to be anorexic. She is 5’8 and weighs only 94pounds. She has been suffering from anorexia for the past 8 years. Emily has a identical twin Tiffany. Emily always felt that her sister was better than her and therefore it led to Emily having less confidence. Her mom was a control freak and her dad was only there for the girls when they were succeeding. Tiffany and Emily both received basketball scholarships. In the first year of college their parents divorced and after that Emily became depressed. Emily went to a party one night and was drugged and raped. She didn't remember anything from that night, she just woke up naked and had no idea how many guys slept with her. That night was when she lost her virginity and woke up the next morning feeling pain mentally and physically. Emily soon started dieting and would barely eat anything. Even when she was hungry, she wouldn't eat. The drive reduction theory is reducing the attempt to relieve tension in your body to a state of homeostasis. Normally if a person is hungry they will look for food and even at the smell or sight of food they get even hungrier than they were before. Emily has trained her body to ignore when she is hungry and starve herself. Emily does eat but only late at night but only consumes 800 calories every day. She usually will have a coffee and a piece of fruit. There is more that she eats but she has a ritual she must follow. Emily counts how many times she rips the lettuce apart and how many pieces of food she will eat in a certain order. It is kind of like a game to her because she has control over it. She doesn't have much control over many things in her life but this one thing she can control. Her sisters all have kids and take great care of them, well Emily compares taking care of her eating disorder like her sisters take care of their kids. Much like a drug addict she suffers from triggers in her life that have brought her to why she is anorexic. Her drug is making herself feel beautiful. To make herself feel beautiful she starves herself and exercises for over 3 hours a day. She thinks that her body is not acceptable because when she looks in a mirror she thinks she is fat but the realization is that she is too skinny. Since she doesn't think she is acceptable so she starves herself and exercises to feel that acceptance.

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  7. The last episode of the show Intervention that we watched in class was about a girl named Emily, who battles with Anorexia. This has been going on for the past eight years. Emily percieves herself as overweight, when she is in reality the absolute opposite. In order to change how she views herself, Emily continuously starves herself. When she does happen to eat, her meals consist of vegetables or fruit with hardly any calories. She never eats any type of meat or dairy, in fear of any kind of weight gain. Growing up, EMily and her twin sister, Tiffany, were very competitive at basically everything they did. Emily always saw her sister as the better one at most things they did. Her mother was a complete control freak, and her father was never really there unless the girls were achieving something in sports. Emily and Tiffany both went to college together, and Emily was very melancholy all of the time, because she saw how happy her twin sister was. One night, Emily got carried away and ended up being drugged and raped. All she remembered was waking up in a lot of pain. It took her over a year to tell her family. Emily soon began dieting after this, and taking lots of laxatives daily to prohibit any weight gain. Emily does several hours of exercises every day along with her dieting. Emily also has OCD; she feels the need have a certain order to eat her food, and she counts when she is cooking as well as eating. This is because of how controlling her mother was, it gives her the feeling of being in control of something. Emily's disorder is a lot like a drug addiction. Both result from the same essential triggers, such as neglection and sexual abuse. Just as someone addicted to a drug feels as if they have to take the drug, Emily feels as if she must resist eating the food that she needs to survive.

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  8. Emily has anorexia and has been anorexic for eight years. She eats less than 800 calories a day. On top of that, she exercises for hours everyday just so she can get rid of the extra calories. She has a twin sister named Tiffany and they are both competitive. Though they are racing to be the best, Emily finds herself to be the lesser twin as if being cast out into the shadows. Their mother, a control freak; their father, never there unless they were winning an award, giving a speech, being the best in their class, or anything that "deserves" for him to be there. Having her parents divorced was one of the triggers leading on to her anorexia. Soon both Emily and Tiffany went to the same college and Emily has majored in counseling. One day, Emily had been drugged and then raped and did not tell her family for about a year. Her being raped is another trigger that also leads to her anorexia. Unlike other people who go to drugs, Emily becomes anorexic. That need-to-be-in-control that her mother had, led on to Emily also being a control freak with what she put in her mouth. She does not let anyone tell her what is good for her to eat. Her OCD also play along with her needing to be in control by having a certain amount of food that she eats, which it does not give her all the nutrients that she needs. She rejects all foods that she fears will make her gain weight and and not look like how she would want to look.

    The drive reduction theory is when all motivation arises as a result of biological or physical needs. When someone is hungry or thirsty, they get something to eat or drink. When Emily is hungry, she does the exact opposite, she does not eat. Not eating satisfies that desire of being that "perfect" weight. Her drug is that satisfaction. Whenever she sees herself in the mirror, she sees herself as overweight thus causing that anxiety to get thinner. There is also the case of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the idea that the body actively works to maintain a certain state of balance. For example, your body regulates its temperature so that you are not too hot or too cold. In her mind, homeostasis is her getting to her ideal weight that she wants to get to. Continuing this process will kill her, unless help is provided.

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  9. Drive reduction theory says that behavior is motivated by trying to reduce stress to obtain balance. In the story about Emily, she struggles with anorexia. She only eats 800 calories a day and is disgustingly skinny. But she doesn’t see herself as skinny. When she looks in the mirror, she thinks she is overweight. She does lots of hard workouts including crunches and sit ups because she doesn’t want to get fat. Emily has a twin sister and they would always compete. Everyone always seemed to like her twin better. Emily was jealous of her sister. So Emily thought she could be slimmer than her sister. Emily couldn’t control being raped or her parents’ divorce. So she wants control over something in her life and have something that is hers. Emily is driven to control her food intake and exercise to balance the tension in her life. Emily also has OCD and everything has to be perfect. She would cut her lettuce in a certain way because she could have control over how she eats.
    Addiction is characterized by substance dependence and compulsive craving, even if it might cause health problems. A drug addict craves a high from a drug, regardless of how it might affect their health and social life. An anorexic craves to be slim, even if it might affect their health. A drug addict needs more drugs to satisfy their urges and needs. With anorexia, you use less and less food to satisfy the need to be skinny. Since Emily craves being slim, her drug is her self image of being slim. It is a good thing that Emily is seeking treatment or she would have died.

    Cherry, Kendra. “Drive Reduction Theory.” Psychology. About.com. 2012. Web. 30 November 2012.

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  10. The drive reduction theory can be seen in Emily’s anorexia problem. The theory states that motivated behavior is the attempt to reduce the unpleasant tension inside of one’s body to a state of homeostasis. Anorexia is a serious type of eating disorder. Most people with this disorder have a huge fear of weight gain and a distorted body image. Emily has trained her body not eat food when her stomach is hungry. She has a twin sister named Tiffany. She always felt she was competing with Tiffany and that she was never good enough. Her father was only affectionate when his children were successful, other than that he was not always there for her. Her mom was a control freak and had to have everything done her way, which often caused arguing in the family. Emily was always jealous of how happy Tiffany was in college, while she herself was depressed. One night in college she was drugged and raped. She did not tell her family until a year later when it was to late to take action and press charges. She soon began dieting and taking laxatives. She also exercised all the time. Emily is OCD and she felt like her eating disorder gave her something she could completely control. Emily starves herself and eats less than 800 calories a day. When she does eat, her meals normally consist of lettuce or other foods that hardly have any calories. This disorder resembles a drug addiction in the sense that they are both triggered by feelings or events. When Emily has no amount of fat on her body she feels content with herself and so starving herself gives her the feeling of having control of her life.

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  11. Emily struggles from anorexia, a common eating disorder where the subject does not eat a sufficient amount of food and is basically starving themselves. When a normal person gets hungry the natural reaction is to eat food, that reaction is known as drive reduction theory. However, when she gets hungry, instead of eating, she exercises. She has an irrational obsession over her body, stemming back to events that occurred during her childhood. As a kid she would always compete with her twin sister in all sorts of little games, and for the most part she would lose. Also, her father was never really around when she was growing up and she lacked that paternal role model. The third major childhood event that occurred was when one night when she was out someone drugged her and raped her; she woke up the next morning feeling great pain and didn’t remember anything. All those events made her feel as though she had lost her control of her own life, and her great obsession over her body is her way of regaining that control. Also when she rarely does eat she will make a game out of it waiting till late at night as though she is the one that can wait the longest to eat, her way of compensating for her constant losing as a child. The food she would eat was incredibly lacking in many nutrients vital for life her meal would only consist of about 800 calories, nowhere near the amount of calories necessary for a healthy human being. Her addiction is very similar to that of a substance addiction. They both create a major change in the person’s lifestyle and they also make the person feel as though they need that substance, or, in Emily’s case, that mental fixation, to be able to live with themselves. Also, they can both be results from similar triggers, like a lack of a father figure, or being sexually abused. The major difference is that Emily is only addicted mentally to this idea that the only way she can be viewed as beautiful is by starving herself, whereas with substance abuse they are actually physically dependent on the high and in some cases can literally not live without it. Emily’s addiction is just as serious as many substance addictions and if she doesn’t change her lifestyle she could die just as easily as any common druggie.

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  12. In another episode of Intervention that we watched in class, we watched a girl named Emily struggle with anorexia for 8 years. She believed that she was still fat and “had a gut” even though she was far from it, to the point where you could see the outline of her bones all over her body. This is very common with people who are anorexic; this serious eating disorder causes people to fear nothing more than weight gain and makes them crave for a distorted body image they view as beautiful. Growing up, Emily felt she was always in competition with her twin, Tiffany, who proved to be the more dominant twin. This affected Emily’s life greatly because she felt like she was the weaker twin and always in her sister’s shadow, which is something no twin would want to feel. On top of that, her mother was a major control freak who had to have everything go her way or in a certain way. Her mother felt that she was always right in everything and always corrected Emily. A good example of this in the episode was when the whole family gathered together to eat and have fun. Emily was in the kitchen making lasagna for her family her own way when her mother came into the kitchen and criticized and questioned the way she made the food, suggesting her way to do it, not even allowing Emily to make a simple food by herself. We could clearly see the frustration Emily had for her mother because it’s what she dealt with all life. Her father was only present and cared about her life when she got awards or was doing really bad at school, other than that he did not pay much attention. To make things even worse on her end, she was abusively raped in college by multiple men, shattering her image, virginity, and view of herself. Emily clearly had no control of her life and felt inferior to everything around her. This is what caused her to become anorexic because this eating disorder allowed her to finally have control of something and fighting the urge to eat and winning that fight. Drive reduction theory states that motivated behaviour is an attempt to reduce the unpleasant tension inside the body to a state of homeostasis. In her mind, restoring her body back to “normal” is working out and starving herself. To reduce the feeling of being overweight, Emily exercises up to 3 times a day and eats less than 800 calories per day. She felt like she needed control over her body’s need for food by working out to get even thinner. When she would eat, though, she would be so particular and OCD about it. She would count her food and eat certain things a certain way and if it didn’t go the way she always did it, she could not finish her plate even if it would take hours to eat. This was her way of finally having control over something that no one could have control over in her family- in other words, this was her winning game. Emily’s drug is feeling attractive or beautiful and having control over her body in her own mind. A drug addict and Emily’s battle with anorexia are similar because they both are caused by triggers. Also they become so highly addictive to it that they build a higher tolerance for it each and every time. People are dependent on the drug just as she is dependent on the way she has to treat herself- she feels the need to starve herself jus to live life just as drug addicts view their life. They see nothing else but it. Although, Anorexia is not a direct substance that one can take. It is a process, unlike drugs and it doesn’t alter her mind set.

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  13. Emily is introduced in this episode on intervention. She is facing anorexia in her life and she has had it for the past eight years. The problem with Emily is that she thinks she is overweight. She has the need to lose weight because she feels that she is overweight. She exercises in replacements of meals and she starves herself on many occasions. She rarely eats throughout the day and only ends up eating when her body absolutely needs it. The problem is that Emily sees herself as fat. When she looks in the mirror she feels the unpleasant tension. All she sees in the mirror is her being out of shape. She starves herself and eats only up to 800 calories a day. Her diet usually consists of coffee and fruits. She does not eat meat and when she does it vegetables she always has to follow her ritual. Her ritual of how she eats has to do with OCD because she can old eat in a certain way. Emily doesn't realize that her goal to be skinny is also killing her. She doesn't see the bad effects but only the good ones that work in her mind. Her mind is telling her that she is satisfied when she does not eat and loses weight. The drive-reduction theory plays in Emily's case because she always feels a unpleasant tension inside her body. her behavior of not eating and her intense exercises allows her to get into a state of homeostasis. She feels the need for this because this is the only way for her to be happy. Emily's behavior is related to drug addiction. One reason is triggers. Emily's anorexia was caused from a trigger. She grew up being very competitive because of her twin sister. She was slightly overshadowed by her twin sister because people liked her better. Everything Emily did become a competitive thing with her sister. She always felt the need to have control and be better than everyone else. She also had unstable parents. Emily's mother was like a control freak and her father was really never there. He only showed up in their lives when they were doing something spectacular that her dad would appreciate. To add on to Emily's trigger, she was also raped. She got raped when she went off to college and she got raped by a bunch of guys. She was affected dramatically by this. These were major triggers to her problem. People often turn to drugs to solve ease their pain but Emily became anorexic. She turned to not eating and worked toward to have a perfect image. She also controlled in what she ate. She liked to have the feeling of control because he parents were control freaks. To solve her problem of her childhood she grew up and had the attitude of being in control of everything. For example, when she went into the intervention room she acted like she knew everyone was already there. She is trying to show that she wasn't surprised or fooled and that she was in control. Her behavior soon became an addiction and this relates to drugs because like people are dependent on drugs, Emily is dependent on not eating and always trying to lose weight. Like drug abuse, she is abuses herself of starvation and not eating. She needs the feeling of having a perfect body and image of herself. Emily's drug is the goal to make herself have the perfect look and to make herself feel beautiful. Emily is addicted to the feeling of looking beautiful and the only way to achieve that, in her mind, is to starve herself and not eat. Her addiction is similar to drugs because it not eating makes her feel comfortable. It makes her feel beautiful and that she is in control. Unlike actual drugs , Emily is addicted in the way her mind works and the thinking that is in her mind. Most drug abusers are addicted to the feeling but Emily is constantly trying to reach homeostasis and a perfect image. This is due to her way of thinking. Emily's addiction that deals with the drive-reduction theory is that she has to get herself away from the unpleasant tension and reach the state of homeostasis.

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  14. In the intervention episode we watched, Emily had Anorexia. She was exremely skinny and only ate a couple times a week. Emily thought she looked fat. The drive reduction theory is when the body needs something, and we have a drive for that need. The body cannot function properly without that certain need which can be really unhealthy. An example of the drive reduction theory is the need for food when we get hungry or the feeling of being overweight. Emily feels and thinks she is overweight so she starves her self and exercises a lot in order to get rid of the drive of feeling overweight. Emily is very self-conscious of her weight and body. She looks at herself in the mirror every day and thinks she looks fat. Emily has always been really competitive with her sister and wants to be better than her. Her mom was also a control freak which caused Emily to need to feel in control over her life and other things. Emily has an addiction to exercise and feeling skinny. Her addiction is like a drug addiction in some ways. Emily and a drug addict both have triggers that cause them to become addicted to the drug. They both feel a need for the drug and get irritated when they cant get it. Their addictions are unhealthy and can lead to death but in different ways. Emily's anorexia can kill her because she bruises easily and doesn't have the right nutrients in her body to function. An addiction to exercise cannot kill her like an addiction to a drug can. If Emily keeps not eating enough and doesn't gain weight she will die.

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  15. In the last episode of intervention that we watched in class there was a girl named Emily who was anorexic. Anorexia is when a person hardly eats any food so your body eventually has to start digesting itself. One thing an anorexic person "has to have" (and many other addicts) is drive reduction theory. Drive reduction theory is, say you get thirsty so you go and get a drink. Drive reduction theory is the motivation (thirst) to get the drink. Emily’s motivation is exercise; she exercises more than three hours each day. But for an average person if they get hungry he or she would go get some food but in Emily’s mind she doesn’t eat but instead, exercises. Emily’s addiction and an addict’s addiction are very similar. Both can originate from the same triggers such as abuse, no real father figure, depression, etc. In Emily’s case she had a super controlling mother, no real father figure unless something good like if her or her sister were receiving an award then he would act as a dad, and lastly when she was in college she became depressed and was drinking and somebody bought her a drink and slipped a roofie in it so she doesn’t remember what exactly happened that night but she does remember waking up in extreme pain because she was raped, by many men; those same triggers could have happened to a substance abuser also. Emily’s drug is the feeling of being in power over her eating. What piece to eat first, when to eat it, what to eat; all of those factors are what empower her to keep living the way she is living even though it could kill her.

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  16. Millions of Americans face eating disorder to this day. These eating disorders range from Bulimia, bulimia nervosa, anorexia, etc. Anorexia is a terrible disorder that is linked to the overall fear of gaining weight and being obese. These anorexics are usually very self conscious people that can sometimes, like in Emily's case, obsessively control their food intake just so that they feel in control. As a child Emily grew up with her twin sister very competitively, and although some friendly competition can be good, too many things began to pile onto Emily which through her into this eating disorder. For example, she felt neglected by her father because it seemed like he was only there for her sister when she did great things. Not having a father figure can have a humongous impact on someones life in a bad, or even good, way. Also to add on to what she is already facing, she had a very controlling mother, which in turn has played a big role in Emily's eating disorder because she needs to be in control at all times. Through her mother's overbearing controlling behavior, she subconsciously must always be in control of things, she always has to be winning at something. Emily satisfies these cravings by starving herself so she can be skinnier then everyone. Even though Emily's physical state is terrible, she numbs it out by having eating rituals, which consist of strange and tedious ways of eating vegetables and fruits. Emily uses this feeling of being in control and having power to revert her back to homeostasis. The feeling of "winning" is her drug, always being on top, in control, and it has consumed her from the inside out. The desire for power and control is what fuels her disorder.

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  17. Emily has a life threatening disease called anorexia. There are many triggers that started this anorexia. When she was young her mom was an up tight strict parent and her dad only paid her attention if she was winning something. She also has a twin sister, which is responsible for her competitive and controlling nature. When Emily went off to college she decided to go to a party one night when she was drugged and raped by two men. This is what kicked off her anorexic disease but what keeps her on her anorexia is her controlling nature. Emily reduces the drive of feeling overweight by training her mind and body over time to think she doesn’t need food. She waits as long as she possibly can throughout the day to eat kind of like a competition with herself to see how long she can wait. At one point she was eating a half an apple and 75 laxatives a day. Emily ignores her bodies warning signs telling her to eat or drink. She doesn’t mind seeing other people eat. This isn’t related to bulimia at all because Emily actually likes food it’s just that she likes to stay skinny more. To Emily eating is a game. She waits as long as she possible can to eat but when she does eat she has a strict technique that she follows by when she eats. She tears her food apart into little pieces and eats certain pieces first. This is an example of how she likes to feel in control over things. She is in control of her food just like she is her body and what she puts in it. Emily’s drug is her staying skinny. Emily and her anorexia is similar to a drug addicts because it is life threatening and has negative consequences. If she keeps up her “drug” she will die just like any other. The differences are that while a drug addict is putting to much in their bodies, Emily is not putting enough of something in her body to feed her “Drug”.

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  18. Every day millions of people struggle with addiction. In this intervention episode Emily has a behavioral addiction. She has an eating disorder called anorexia. This behavioral addiction is a lot like substance addictions based on many things. They are similar based on her reward pathway being altered by her behavior turning it into an addiction. This reward pathway is affected because she spends all of her time devoted to not eating and thinking about not eating. Over time her brain becomes associated with not eating so much that it begins to release dopamine when not eating or in Emily's case exercising. This is much like a substance user because instead of a natural release of dopamine they turn to their drug of choice for happiness. When using their drug they feel the release of dopamine and become addicted to that feeling. Addicts become addicted to the release of dopamine rather than their actual drug of choice. Emily feels like she needs to constantly be in control. This is seen through her control of her food intake. Instead of her body telling her when she needs to eat and drink she feels the need to be in control. This goes against the drive reduction theory which states that your body seeks to return back to a level of homeostasis by eating when it needs to or drinking when it needs to. Emily's need for control defy's this theory. This defiance can be seen by her only eating lettuce and small amounts of food to feel like she is in control when her body is on the brink of shutting down.

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  19. In the episode of Intervention we watched today in class we got an inside look into the life of a young woman named Emily. The problem she has is that she has a disease called anorexia. This is when people do not eat in order to loose weight and this leads to extreme health problems. The drive reduction theory is when one's drives are reduced causing motivation one may have toward something, in the case of Emily she has this theory reversed. She reduces the drive to eat by exercising throughout the day and usually only eats a peice of fruit and a salad all day. The thing that caused her to have anorexia are the same things that cause addicts to become addicted to their drugs which are triggers from her past. She is an identical twin and has a very controlling mother which are both reasons that have been linked to addiction to alcohol as well as other drugs. Her addiction to not eating goes against the idea that your body need sto reach homeostasis which is essentially the drive reduction theory.

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