The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa, With a New Foreword by Catherine Steiner-Adair, Ed.D.

by Hilde Bruch M.D., Catherine Steiner-Adair

Overview

First published more than twenty years ago, with almost 150,000 copies sold, The Golden Cage is still the classic book on anorexia nervosa, for patients, parents, mental health trainees, and senior therapists alike. Writing in direct, jargon-free style, often quoting her patients’ descriptions of their own experience of illness and recovery, Bruch describes the relentless pursuit of thinness and the search for superiority in self-denial that characterizes anorexia nervosa. She emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis and offers guidance on danger signs. Little-known when this groundbreaking book was first published, eating disorders have become all too familiar. Sympathetic and astute, The Golden Cage now speaks to a new generation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674005846
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/02/2001
Edition description:	1ST HARVARD
Pages:	174
Sales rank:	463,041
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Hilde Bruch, M.D., was Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and the author of several books, including Eating Disorders.

Table of Contents

1. The Hunger Disease

2. Sparrow in a Cage

3. The Perfect Childhood

4. How It Starts

5. The Anorexic Stance

6. Weight Correction

7. Family Disengagement

8. Changing the Mind

What People are Saying About This

The chief symptom is shocking: self-starvation leading to a devastating weight loss. The treatment is difficult, the cure elusive, and facts about the disease are not well known. Yet anorexia nervosa, an illness that was once quite rare, now afflicts increasing numbers of adolescents.

In The Golden Cage, a renowned psychiatrist-recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on anorexia nervosa-relates her experience and discoveries in dealing with this baffling disorder. It is not, as the name implies, simply a loss of appetite. Rather, it involves a relentless pursuit of excessive thinness, undertaken despite continual hunger, acute pain, and occasionally fatal consequences. Dr. Bruch uses numerous examples from her own case studies to give a vivid picture of the causes, effects, and possible treatment of the disease. Her main concern: how can the symptoms be detected before they become entrenched as anorexia?

The victims of anorexia are mostly adolescent and preadolescent girls who have otherwise been model children from "good homes." Often they feel trapped by unattainable goals and expectations-a golden cage of privilege where they feel they do not belong and cannot survive. Dr. Bruch's experience has convinced her that early diagnosis is essential to any treatment of anorexia, and her book is addressed "to physicians, teachers, school counselors, and parents-to all who are in a position of observing these youngsters before a chronic and often irreversible state develops."

Hilde Bruch is Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and is the author of numerous articles and books, including Eating Disorders. Her latest book, LearningPsychotherapy: Rationale and Ground Rules, was published by Harvard University Press.

Shervert H. Frazier

The story of the disorder itself is beautifully written, presented with a deftness, lightness, and accuracy that make the reader yearn to turn the page, to watch the unfolding of this very enigmatic disorder. This is the single most important professionally written book for laypersons and parents.
— Shervert H. Frazier, M.D., McLean Hospital

Editorial Reviews

An extraordinary achievement… Bruch wrote with clarity, insight and compassion of her cases during the anorexia outbreak of the early ’70s, an epidemic that seemed to arise out of nowhere, with no official diagnosis.

New York Times Style Magazine - Holly Brubach

The Golden Cage is eminently readable and generously spiced with vivid illustrations from Bruch’s own clinical case material. Her discussion of and generalization from this material are wonderfully astute.

Contemporary Psychology

The story of the disorder itself is beautifully written, presented with a deftness, lightness, and accuracy that make the reader yearn to turn the page, to watch the unfolding of this very enigmatic disorder. This is the single most important professionally written book for laypersons and parents.

Shervert H. Frazier

The Golden Cage is eminently readable and generously spiced with vivid illustrations from Bruch's own clinical case material. Her discussion of and generalization from this material are wonderfully astute.-- "Contemporary Psychology"

An extraordinary achievement... Bruch wrote with clarity, insight and compassion of her cases during the anorexia outbreak of the early '70s, an epidemic that seemed to arise out of nowhere, with no official diagnosis.--Holly Brubach "New York Times Style Magazine" (5/1/2007 12:00:00 AM)

The story of the disorder itself is beautifully written, presented with a deftness, lightness, and accuracy that make the reader yearn to turn the page, to watch the unfolding of this very enigmatic disorder. This is the single most important professionally written book for laypersons and parents.--Shervert H. Frazier, M.D., McLean Hospital

From the Publisher

An extraordinary achievement...Bruch wrote with clarity, insight and compassion of her cases during the anorexia outbreak of the early '70s, an epidemic that seemed to arise out of nowhere, with no official diagnosis.
— Holly Brubach

New York Times Style Magazine