Issues around food in mixed families of adolescent girls with bulimia nervosa: A qualitative study with photo-elicitation.

OBJECTIVES: Bulimia nervosa (BN) is a common psychiatric disorder among adolescent girls with potentially significant complications. Family relationships play a major role in the development and progression of this disorder. Studies in migrant populations suffering from eating disorders show contrasting results depending on the generation of migrants: first generation migrants have fewer eating disorders than the native population, while the prevalence of this disorder is more important than the latter among second and third generation migrants. In our clinical experience, we have frequently encountered so-called "mixed" families, which are families composed of one migrant parent and one non-migrant parent. Research focusing on this kind of family is scarce which is why we chose to explore their dynamic. METHODS: This study explored the issues around food and family relationships of adolescent girls suffering from BN, a topic that, to date, has not yet been studied. Ten interviews were conducted with five adolescent girls with BN between the ages of 16 and 20 and their parents, using photo-elicitation to enrich the collected data. RESULTS: The results were organized around two axes: (1) identity issues around food, that is the assimilation process described by both parents and adolescents concerning family meals and food habits, and how the adolescents struggle to manage this interbreeding; and (2) transmission issues with the consequences the migrant parent has to deal with to transmit his/her cultural identity with food while being far away from the homeland, and the difficulties between this parent and his/her child to share this heritage. Both issues, identity and transmission, appear to be central among these families. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest a difficulty in mentalizing identity issues in adolescent girls; the function of appeasement around non-mentalized tensions was highlighted. In our opinion, in this particular context, BN acts as a means of expressing the difficulty of their mixed culture. This enables it to draw some clinical implications, especially using mentalization-based therapy which has already shown efficacy in adolescents with borderline personality disorder and ED.

[Training of healthcare professionals in clinical hypnosis: A qualitative study]. / Étude qualitative de l'expérience de la formation en hypnose clinique pour les professionnels de santé.

OBJECTIVE: Training in clinical hypnosis leads to important transformations in healthcare professionals, in their professional practices as well as in their personal lives. The objective of this study was to explore how health professionals experience the transformations that result from such a training. METHOD: Semi-structured interviews with health professionals from France and Europe were conducted. The qualitative method used was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Purposive sampling required to include participants from different professions, experience and regions of origin. They had already completed training in clinical hypnosis at different teaching institutions. RESULTS: Ten participants were included. The analysis showed four meta-themes of experience. First, it revealed participants' motivations for training in clinical hypnosis as one's desire to improve one's practice, leading to extraordinary discoveries, at a particular timing in their life. Second, participants described that hypnosis sometimes set the ground for a relationship verging on the more "intimate", therefore requiring greater caution so as not to disrupt the patient/healthcare professional relationship. Third, some participants experienced unforeseen personal fulfilment, better self-regulation of emotions and improved quality of life as well as greater comfort at the workplace. Finally, this study shed light on two limitations of training in clinical hypnosis as it can sometimes generate stress for the participants and/or result in bring about potential harmful effects: one of the risks being that the trainer might cross some ethical lines. DISCUSSION: The level of personal change experienced by the participants is similar to some changes induced by personal psychotherapy. For several participants, issues of power and vulnerability in the relationship using hypnosis were associated with a feeling of instability during the training. In hypnosis, the management of an asymmetrical relationship involves a two-way risk: vulnerability of the hypnotized person to the all-powerful relationship of their therapist as well as destabilization of therapists by the reduction of power asymmetry during hypnotic work with their patients.

[Comorbid major depressive disorder of anorexia nervosa in adolescence: A scoping review of treatment strategies]. / Scoping review des stratégies de prise en charge du trouble dépressif caractérisé comorbide d'une anorexie mentale à l'adolescence.

OBJECTIVES: Psychiatric comorbidities are frequent in anorexia nervosa, with the highest rate of suicidal lethality among psychiatric disorders. Major depressive disorder is one of the most life-threatening comorbidities of anorexia nervosa, exacerbating the risk of suicide, aphagia, and pervasive refusal syndrome. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of studies exploring strategies for the treatment of severe depression in the acute phase of anorexia nervosa in adolescence. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review of the publications dealing with the treatment of depressive comorbidities in adolescents suffering from anorexia nervosa published between 2005 and 2019. An electronic search in Pubmed and Medline for relevant studies used the following keywords adolescent, youth, anorexia nervosa, depress*, suicide*, "melancholic depression", treat*, therapy*, care. Included studies were dealing with 10-18-year-old inpatient or outpatient adolescents presenting an anorexia nervosa complicated by a major depressive disorder. RESULTS: Of 562 studies identified, eight were included in the final sample. Regarding psychiatric treatments, four studies concerned the prescription of antidepressants, one case-study was described a treatment by electroconvulsive therapy and another was dealt with light therapy. Finally, the two last studies evaluated the effect of nutritional treatment on psychiatric symptoms but found no significant direct association between weight gain and improvement of depressive symptoms. DISCUSSION: There is a need to identify faster severe depressive disorders in adolescents with anorexia nervosa in order to provide, along with refeeding, a more intensive treatment of mood symptoms. A multidisciplinary and coordinated approach must be initiated at the beginning of the trouble. There is a need for more systematic studies on the therapeutic approaches of mood disorder comorbidities in adolescents suffering from anorexia nervosa.