Psychotherapy can be an excellent choice of therapy when seeking help with eating disorders due to the wholistic approach. Rather than seeing your eating disorder as an isolated problem, we see it in the context of your life story.
Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder,
Eating disorders usually develop alongside a range of psychological symptoms including anxiety, GAD (generalised anxiety disorder), depression, panic disorder, personality disorder, emotional reactivity, self-harm and complex grief. Physical symptoms can also develop as a result of eating disorders. Sometimes, severe complications of eating disorders may even lead to hospitalisation.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy approaches behaviour like how we choose to eat or not eat, as psychological rather than pathological. In other words, we explore the bigger picture of your sense of self and identity and how this gets formed through relationships over a lifetime.
This rich conversation about your life, your relationships, your passions and your disappointments help to uncover the cause of diverse eating behaviours. These are generally formed as an adaptive response to deeper issues. In fact, once we understand these together, the troubling eating behaviours naturally lessen their grip.
Conversations about deeper emotional issues can uncover the root cause of diverse eating behaviours.
When we refer to the “Self” in psychotherapy, we are talking about your core sense of who you are. Sometimes people say, “I just don’t feel like myself” or “I can’t get a grip” or “sometimes I don’t really know who I am or what I want”. This is usually a sign that there is a sense that somewhere deep down is a sign there is a fragile part of your core Self that needs to be located and given a voice.
Strengthening your sense of self helps to change adaptive eating behaviours that feel out of control. It’s not that we don’t talk about the eating behaviours and how they affect you and your life. We definitely do, but they are not seen in isolation. Rather as being symptomatic of how you function emotionally and psychologically in the world.
A fragile sense of self can be the driver of diverse eating behaviours and the understanding of your fragility and vulnerability can help to put your stronger self in the driver’s seat!
If you feel like psychotherapy could benefit you to overcome and manage your eating disorder, please get in touch.
Laura Wilson is a psychotherapist who works with adults, adolescents and children. Her training is in The Conversational Model with ANZAP, the Australian and New Zealand Association for Psychotherapy that is affiliated with Westmead Hospital’s School of Psychological Medicine. Laura is also a qualified Allied Healthcare Practitioner with a particular focus on mental health, well-being and complementary medicine. She holds a Bachelor of Health Science in which she studied Neurophysiology, Holistic Counselling, Herbal Medicine and Nutrition.