Why I’m so upbeat about my patients

When it comes to eating disorders, there’s no single treatment that’s superior to any other. Often, it’s a combination of approaches that works best — and, typically, these come from the patient.

This came to mind as I read a new book by Laura Freeman, a writer and editor formerly of this parish. The Reading Cure: how Books Restored My Appetite charts her recovery from anorexia and explains how she rediscovered how to enjoy food — and life — through literature.

A friend who saw me with the book was surprised when I said it was about the author getting better from her anorexia.

‘But I didn’t think people could recover from that?’ he asked.

For me, this touches upon a much wider issue relating to mental illness.

People often ask if I find working in this field depressing because no one gets better.

In fact, most people do recover. Compare this to other areas of medicine, with many conditions chronic and deteriorating over time. Yet you never hear anyone say to a cardiologist: ‘Oh, how depressing, all those people with heart failure,’ do you? What makes my work so rewarding is the knowledge that so many of those you meet will, in fact, get better, even if it seems unimaginable to them at the time. It is a field full of hope.

Well done to Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, for speaking out this week about her experience of incontinence after childbirth. I have been a critic of Dame Sally in the past, but she should be applauded for highlighting an issue that affects so many women, but which is cloaked in shame and embarrassment, with many suffering in silence. That the most senior doctor in this country has spoken about incontinence will mean so much to them.