Problems with Food & Body Image

Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating

Each individual’s relationship with food sits on a continuum from Healthy eating at one extreme through to clinically diagnosed Eating Disorders at the other (these include Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating, and Anorexia Nervosa, as well as Obesity).  We find it helpful to refer to the vast range of attitudes and behaviours in between these extremes as Disordered Eating.

Wherever you are on the continuum – struggling to lose weight, binge eating, obsessively counting calories, restricting the amount or type of food, over exercising, purging through vomiting or laxative use, indulging in comfort eating – we can help you to make change and reduce your distress over food and your body.

Body image is often a key underlying issue in disordered eating, and society certainly reinforces this through social media, films, television, and advertising, and peer pressure.  Commonly thought of as mainly affecting women and girls, these days men are affected as well, and the age at which these issues are starting to take hold is getting younger.  We will work with you to redefine the role of your body and to come to love your body rather than be in a tug of war with it.

Sometimes disordered eating is the result of feeling buffeted by circumstances and life in general, and it’s a way of taking some sort of control over our lives.  Sometimes it’s a result of a learned perfectionism that we are chasing after – often in many areas of our lives – not just our physical bodies.

If you are tired of the distress and the ongoing cycle we can help you with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy tailored to the specific issues (the thoughts, behaviours and distressing feelings) that are maintaining your situation.  This tailored form of CBT is evidence based, and is the recommended treatment for disordered eating around the world.

Weight Management

Difficulty with weight management is increasingly common in society in general, and the "solutions" available form a multi-billion dollar industry in diets, diet foods, weight loss programs and other health and fitness interventions.  Sadly, the evidence is that diet and exercise alone simply don't work over time.  This is largely because the regimes used to reduce weight are often so restrictive that they are almost impossible to sustain.

Often individuals lose their motivation to persist when they realise that the advertising used has misled them to believe that  the process will be very rapid (e.g. fad diets, reality TV programs featuring caloric restriction and extreme exercise);  easy (e.g. meal substitutes in particular which are just not sustainable in normal life);  achieve greater weight loss (e.g. before and after photos that show dramatic change); and create massive improvement in the person's life (e.g. better career, relationships, parenting skills and so forth).

The best outcomes however (apart from Bariatric surgery) over a 2+ years timeframe are derived from a combination of diet and exercise and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  The CBT used is tailored to weight loss and targets the specific behavioural, emotional and cognitive processes that are relevant to this area.  

Starting with realistic goal setting, CBT approaches target the psychological factors that may underly the problems being experienced with weight management.  These might include emotional eating, lack of motivation, self sabotage, lack of knowledge or skills to manage emotional states, problematic body image, and other psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Whatever your situation or needs, we can work with you to tailor the approach to your goals.