Psych Eval

Hello, new to OH.  I'll post an intro in a few...

In the meantime, in another forum, I read several posts regarding the psych eval.  Specifically the posts mentioned that if during your psych eval you admitted to being an emotional eater, eiother currently or in the past, you were bound to not being cleared for surgery...

Okay, I guess I am a bit confused about this....

Well, not to be disparaging or anything, but arent many of us emotional eaters, or have been at one time or another?  Seems to me that by not appropriately dealing with or admitting this behavior is somewhat self-destructive, only to be reinforced by psychs who threaten to not pass you for admitting such behavior.

Come on now, I love food as much as the next person, but I didnt balloon all the way up to 360 pounds ONLY because I love a good plate of pasta everynight.  After reaching about 300, I would say the next 60 were all emotional eating - I mean, 300+ is a tough number. A number that comes with all sorts of risks and emotions...

Does everyone find this to be true?  That even though we maybe emotional eaters that we have to lie about not being one in order to pass the psych eval?

Andrew

I know the type of pysch eval that I had you couldn't hide issues even if you wanted to. It was one of those really long multiple choice questionairres and honestly I thought I was going to slide a few things by that I didn't want to discuss with a therapist that didn't know me. Oh was I wrong. When I sat down with her she knew I was a recovering alcoholic, had issues with my family, the full nine yards.

I'm no expert by any means and I'm sure the more seasoned vets here will have much better insights than I have, but that was just my experience.

I personally think that the large majority of MO people have some level of emotional eating. I cant really remember whether it was specifically mentioned during my psych eval or not but it seems to me that if you are willing to deal with you emotional eating in another constructive way....like exercise or something, that it should not preclude you from having surgery.....but then again....im not a psychologist.

Good Luck!!!

Michelle =)

I admitted to being one in the past. I had taken care of it about 95% when I had surgery. I admitted to the therapist about it too. I said if someone died I would want a pint of B&J or Hagan Daas. But I knew food would not make the problem go away or solve the problem. I had learned that long ago. (Prolly close to 10 years at that point) I had mostly overcomed it. I was passed off. I have a friend that is still and emotional eater and had to read some books on it and it stopped her progress.

For the most part the psych eval is to determine if you understand the risks and benefits of the surgery and if you are likely to be compliant with the post op changes that will have to be made. I think most of the folks that do psych evals understand that many of us are emtional eaters that is not the main thing they are concerned with.

When I had my eval, we fully discussed the fact that I am an emotional eater... we also discussed how to work through that, and I have, since then, been back to see the therapist who I did my eval with to work on the emotional eating thing...

it's still hard.  Food was such a big comfort for so long, and to now have to find something else to take it's place is tough.

 

I wrote the following blog about my very recent psych eval:

http://kevsweightloss.blogspot.com/2009/06/psych-evaluation.html

Emotional eating will not prevent clearance... if it did it would be rare to be approved for surgery.

What might hamper your clearance is if you admit to emotional eating and do not have an answer for the psychologist when they ask, "How do you plan to deal with emotional eating after surgery?"

There are several ways to deal with this but my advice to you is to not rely on what others do but what you figure out on your own.  What other people do will probably not work for you.  If you choose to tell the therapist how someone else deals with emotional eating instead of what you have figured out you are only cheating yourself and essentially setting yourself up for failure.

I will tell you that it is very important to recognize what your emotional triggers are and from there it will be easy to figure out how to deal with your emotions and feelings.  I think once you have a handle on that you will be able to easily answer the question I mentioned above.  

Good luck!

Hi Andrew,
I know I'm a little late jumping in on this one... I had my pysch eval this past Thursday and was not denied clearance but my surgery has been postponed.  I admitted to being an emotional eater, but also told the pyschologist that I am currently in therapy to deal with it and learn stress management tools that will help me as well.  While she applauded my honesty and the fact that I was proactive in dealing with the issue, she has postponed my clearance for a minimum of 8 weeks because she wants me to see the therapist once a week during that time to be sure I can cope with the post op changes.  (Not being able to eat a bowl of ice cream when my boss makes me mad, etc.)  She knows my therapist and will work with her to get me cleared.
I hate that my honesty has pushed my surgery date out at least 2 months and I cried a river of tears on the way home from the appointment... but I understand the reasoning behind it.
Just my experience,
Lea