Why I Wrote the Eating Disorder Supplement to The Neuroscience of a Bucket List

by Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo

When people ask why I wrote an eating disorder–specific supplement to The Neuroscience of a Bucket List, I usually smile, because the truth is that the book didn’t simply “come next.” It emerged from a decades-long thread woven through my entire medical career. In many ways, this supplement began before I ever realized it had started. My introduction to eating disorder treatment began during my residency in psychiatry at the NYU program at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island, N.Y.  At that time, my residency directors, Dr. Jack Katz and Dr. Victor Fornari, were pioneers in the field of eating disorders. They paved the way for so much of what we understand today, and they modeled the kind of clinical curiosity and compassion that would shape the rest of my career. 

While many physicians and psychiatrists hesitated to take on eating disorder cases because of their unique medical fragility and psychiatric complexity, I found myself drawn to them. Something about the unusual thought patterns, the paradoxical logic, the intensity of fear, and the meaning that lived inside these patients’ minds captivated me in a way nothing else did. I felt compelled to understand what was happening beneath the surface and to trace the circuitry, to decipher the neurobiology, to make sense of the brain that seemed to be fighting so fiercely against the body it belonged to.

As psychiatric residents, we would see cases come into our clinic carrying layers of mystery: young patients convinced they couldn't eat, others overwhelmed by urges they didn’t understand, some caught in rituals they couldn’t stop. It didn’t intimidate me. It energized me. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know which circuits fired, which networks faltered, and which survival instincts had misfired, turning inward. My curiosity wasn’t morbid, it was reverent. This was the brain at its most fascinating, and at times, its most fragile.

After residency, my fascination didn’t fade; word spread. More eating disorder cases came my way. Patients and clinicians sensed I understood something about the neurobiological side that clarified confusion. As neuroscience expanded, so did I. I filled binders with research and printed studies until my office looked like a library built from curiosity. Back in 2006, I began writing a book titled "Translation: Demystifying the Neurobiology of Eating Disorders." Ironically, the book kept growing faster than I could complete it. Every time I felt a sense of closure, a new wave of research would emerge, changing the landscape. I felt like I was trying to nail down a moving target. And yet, the core goal never changed: I wanted patients to understand their brains. I wanted families to understand, too. Knowledge reduces shame. It restores dignity. It creates hope. Demystification, giving people a map of what’s happening inside them, became one of the most powerful therapeutic tools I had.

Then something shifted. As I balanced medicine, family, responsibility, and my own life, I embraced a bucket-list approach grounded in neuroscience: novelty, meaning, value-based choices, reward circuits, and a healthier narrative. This approach changed my life and, seeing its power, I felt compelled to share it.

After completing The Neuroscience of a Bucket List: Getting the Most from Your Brain and Life, I recognized its ties to my earlier work with eating disorder patients and those needing agency and identity beyond illness. Bucket listing provided them a sense of motion in lives that felt paused.I also recognized a painful truth: eating disorder treatment often makes patients feel even more out of control. Food is prescribed. Schedules are dictated. Weight goals are set. Therapy can require surrender at the exact moment the patient clings hardest for control. I saw treatment itself as a set of extrinsic factors trying to push people through recovery. However, the process lacked helping patients find intrinsic meaning to help pull the patient through recovery. The clinicians knew the how to help with recovery, but only superficially, if at all, help patients discover powerful reasons “why “ to recover and take back their lives.  So, I asked myself, “What if we could give control back? Not over symptoms, but over life, meaning, and the future.”  That question led directly to this supplement.

The Eating Disorder Supplement to The Neuroscience of a Bucket List brings together the science of eating disorders and bucket listing in a structured format that patients and clinicians can use immediately. It introduces Demystification Therapy as a foundational tool and aligns it with bucket list interventions. It shows how understanding the brain’s networks, reward systems, emotional circuits, and survival responses can transform how a patient relates to the illness, and to themselves. In writing this supplement, I wanted to offer more than education. I wanted to offer a bridge. A bridge between neuroscience and lived experience. A bridge between treatment and empowerment. A bridge between survival and a life worth reclaiming. Ultimately, the supplement exists because I believe clinicians and patients deserve to understand their brains and the tools that make recovery feel possible, not just in theory, but in practice.

Above all, decades spent with those feeling trapped by their minds inspired this work. The brain holds the key; my aim was to help translate it for them. As a part of my own desire to fulfill my “giving back “ bucket list category, I have given over 1000 free copies of this supplement to clinicians and some patients during special promotions in order to contribute to making a difference to my field of study and practice. To anyone who reads this blog, I too will offer the same to you: just follow this webpage and e-mail me at DrDBucketList@gmail.com.  Request The Eating Disorder Supplement to The Neuroscience of a Bucket List and I will send you a free PDF copy of the book as a gift. 

When people ask why I wrote an eating disorder–specific supplement to The Neuroscience of a Bucket List, I usually smile, because the truth is that the book didn’t simply “come next.” It emerged from a decades-long thread woven through my entire medical career. In many ways, this supplement began before I ever realized it had started. My introduction to eating disorder treatment began during my residency in psychiatry at the NYU program at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island, N.Y.  At that time, my residency directors, Dr. Jack Katz and Dr. Victor Fornari, were pioneers in the field of eating disorders. They paved the way for so much of what we understand today, and they modeled the kind of clinical curiosity and compassion that would shape the rest of my career. 

While many physicians and psychiatrists hesitated to take on eating disorder cases because of their unique medical fragility and psychiatric complexity, I found myself drawn to them. Something about the unusual thought patterns, the paradoxical logic, the intensity of fear, and the meaning that lived inside these patients’ minds captivated me in a way nothing else did. I felt compelled to understand what was happening beneath the surface and to trace the circuitry, to decipher the neurobiology, to make sense of the brain that seemed to be fighting so fiercely against the body it belonged to.

As psychiatric residents, we would see cases come into our clinic carrying layers of mystery: young patients convinced they couldn't eat, others overwhelmed by urges they didn’t understand, some caught in rituals they couldn’t stop. It didn’t intimidate me. It energized me. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know which circuits fired, which networks faltered, and which survival instincts had misfired, turning inward. My curiosity wasn’t morbid, it was reverent. This was the brain at its most fascinating, and at times, its most fragile.

After residency, my fascination didn’t fade; word spread. More eating disorder cases came my way. Patients and clinicians sensed I understood something about the neurobiological side that clarified confusion. As neuroscience expanded, so did I. I filled binders with research and printed studies until my office looked like a library built from curiosity. Back in 2006, I began writing a book titled "Translation: Demystifying the Neurobiology of Eating Disorders." Ironically, the book kept growing faster than I could complete it. Every time I felt a sense of closure, a new wave of research would emerge, changing the landscape. I felt like I was trying to nail down a moving target. And yet, the core goal never changed: I wanted patients to understand their brains. I wanted families to understand, too. Knowledge reduces shame. It restores dignity. It creates hope. Demystification, giving people a map of what’s happening inside them, became one of the most powerful therapeutic tools I had.

Then something shifted. As I balanced medicine, family, responsibility, and my own life, I embraced a bucket-list approach grounded in neuroscience: novelty, meaning, value-based choices, reward circuits, and a healthier narrative. This approach changed my life and, seeing its power, I felt compelled to share it.

After completing The Neuroscience of a Bucket List: Getting the Most from Your Brain and Life, I recognized its ties to my earlier work with eating disorder patients and those needing agency and identity beyond illness. Bucket listing provided them a sense of motion in lives that felt paused.I also recognized a painful truth: eating disorder treatment often makes patients feel even more out of control. Food is prescribed. Schedules are dictated. Weight goals are set. Therapy can require surrender at the exact moment the patient clings hardest for control. I saw treatment itself as a set of extrinsic factors trying to push people through recovery. However, the process lacked helping patients find intrinsic meaning to help pull the patient through recovery. The clinicians knew the how to help with recovery, but only superficially, if at all, help patients discover powerful reasons “why “ to recover and take back their lives.  So, I asked myself, “What if we could give control back? Not over symptoms, but over life, meaning, and the future.”  That question led directly to this supplement.

The Eating Disorder Supplement to The Neuroscience of a Bucket List brings together the science of eating disorders and bucket listing in a structured format that patients and clinicians can use immediately. It introduces Demystification Therapy as a foundational tool and aligns it with bucket list interventions. It shows how understanding the brain’s networks, reward systems, emotional circuits, and survival responses can transform how a patient relates to the illness, and to themselves. In writing this supplement, I wanted to offer more than education. I wanted to offer a bridge. A bridge between neuroscience and lived experience. A bridge between treatment and empowerment. A bridge between survival and a life worth reclaiming. Ultimately, the supplement exists because I believe clinicians and patients deserve to understand their brains and the tools that make recovery feel possible, not just in theory, but in practice.

Above all, decades spent with those feeling trapped by their minds inspired this work. The brain holds the key; my aim was to help translate it for them. As a part of my own desire to fulfill my “giving back “ bucket list category, I have given over 1000 free copies of this supplement to clinicians and some patients during special promotions in order to contribute to making a difference to my field of study and practice. To anyone who reads this blog, I too will offer the same to you: just follow this webpage and e-mail me at DrDBucketList@gmail.com.