A Warrnambool psychologist has stumbled upon a “hidden population” of men struggling with eating disorders while providing drug and alcohol counselling.
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She will present her globally-significant findings at two national conferences.
Sheridan Meulblok has specialised in counselling those with eating disorders for over 15 years, seeing clients through private practice and with Victorian peak body, the Eating Disorder Foundation. In all that time, she never once had a male client.
Ms Meulblok said that for psychologists in her field, this experience was not rare.
“Although 25 per cent of those with eating disorders in the general population are men, they are much less likely to present for treatment because of the shame and stigma associated with what is seen as a female illness,” Ms Meulblok said.
“It is also clear that families, social networks and health practitioners are less likely to consider the disorder in men. This means there is an absence of research internationally about men with eating disorders and their treatment needs were not well understood.”
But when Ms Meulblok began work on a new program with the Western Region Alcohol and Drug Centre (WRAD), providing holistic care, she found that a quarter of her caseload of eating disorder clients were men.
The significance of Ms Meulblok’s findings is that, although men with eating disorders have been undetected by most other healthcare providers, when they are screened through drug and alcohol services, it is more likely their disorders will be picked up.
In addition to receiving standard drug rehabilitation, participants in the WRAD program, many of whom had never seen a psychologist before, also received therapy sessions with Ms Meulblok.
She found that a significant number of them had been “suffering silently” with anorexia and bulimia for several decades but had never sought help.
“Either they didn’t see their disorders as an issue, they didn’t connect the dots about the two issues or they saw their substance abuse as more pressing,” Ms Meulblok said.
She also found that none of their disorders had been picked up by their referring doctors. This meant that Ms Muelblok was able to identify a problem that had been missed through standard treatment.
Because of the unique way she came across these findings, she knew they could have potential significance internationally and decided to detail them in a research paper, which she will present at the Australia New Zealand Addiction Conference and the Obesity and Eating Disorders Conference.
Ms Meulblok believes that by looking at the experience of her clients, a great deal could be learnt about how to better screen, assess and treat the disorder in men and make sure they are not overlooked in the future.
She will also present a training session for professionals, hosted by WRAD, on April 10. For more information email sophrosyneconsulting@outlook.com or call 1300 009 723