Anorexia's Fallen Angel: The Untold Story of Peggy Claude-Pierre and the Controversial Montreux Clinic

by Barbara McLintock

Great book. Inspiring.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mental Health, Psychology

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[E J · Rating 3 out of 5]

harrowing and fascinating account of a totally bizarre and reckless attempt to treat a medical problem with no medical knowledge.
a thorough and fascinating piece of long form
journalism.
there are typos in the copy i bought from amazon and at times the sheer number of boring white girl names substituted for the real names of people involved made it hard to keep track.

[l · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrifying.

The idea that McLintock is vilifying anyone is absurd (Claude-Pierre's actions speak for themselves) though McLintock's language re: patients suffering from anorexia is inappropriate and unhelpful at times.

Approaching criticism of the Montreux Clinic as an issue of alternative medicine vs the biomedical model is unhelpful. This is about patient rights and the denial of those rights (nb BC has very weak patient rights compared to many other Canadian provinces so that the Montreux Clinic failed to meet those standards is pretty damning).

That Claude-Pierre is now operating another clinic in Portugal is again, horrifying.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

McLintock seems out to vilify Claude-Pierre. She doesn't seem to completely understand eating disorders, either, making callous comments like "so-and-so didn't look like somebody in the throes of anorexia" While I'm not suggesting Montreux was perfect, she seems to worship the medical establishment too much, which itself has been largely ineffective in treating eating disorders. Much is made that (gasp) Claude-Pierre doesn't have a bachelor's degree. I was happy when this book was over.