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Emotional eating disorder therapy and counselling
Using established therapies such as EMDR, your therapist will work with you to understand & overcome your disorder.
What is an eating disorder?
Eating disorders are negative attitudes towards food, severe enough to change the person’s eating habits. Someone suffering from an eating disorder may develop an obsessive habit of monitoring their weight and body shape which may cause damage to their health. Eating disorders can also take the form of emotional eating, binge eating, food addiction, food aversion, and overeating. Â
The most common eating disorders are bulimia and anorexia. Bulimia is when a person attempts to control their weight by inducing vomiting after binge eating. Anorexia is when a person attempts to maintain a very low weight. This is achieved through lack of eating or over-exercising.Â
Many of us enjoy food as a reward or a pick-me-up from time to time. This is a normal and a natural part of life when used to cope with and manage emotions. However, when this becomes the main coping strategy it can quickly become out of control. Â
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Emotional eating disorder in more detail
Everyone can have an emotional response to food. Many of us enjoy food as a reward or a pick-me-up from time to time. This is normal and a natural part of life when used as part of a range of strategies to cope and manage emotions.
However, when this becomes the main coping strategy it can quickly become out of control. This is where we can help. Our trained emotional eating therapists are here to help you take control and conquer your disorder.
Emotional eating is a recognised eating disorder. Many people emotionally overeat as a way to block out negative emotions and distress, they turn to food for comfort and escape during times of low mood. When someone overeats emotionally it is in an attempt to make themselves feel better; they are using eating as a way to feel comforted or soothed.
Common causes of eating disorders
- Low self-esteemÂ
- Unhappy with the way you lookÂ
- Mental health conditions like depression and anxietyÂ
- Following a strict, low calorie or restricting dietÂ
- Traumatic events from your pastÂ
- Feelings of Isolation, boredom, stress or angerÂ
- Following strict, low calorie or restricting dietsÂ
What’s the difference between emotional eating and binge eating?
The main difference between emotional eating and binge eating is the amount of food consumed in one episode of emotional overeating – this does not need to be large – as opposed to someone who is binge eating where they will eat until they are uncomfortably full.Â
Client success stories
How we help
Our trained therapists help you take control of your emotional eating disorders in a safe environment where you can be yourself. We’ll use talking therapies in treating emotional eating disorders such as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Â
Whatever your situation, we’ll tailor your sessions to suit your needs and will work with you on an individual basis or in emotional eating group therapy sessions. While recovery from eating disorders is a slow process, we’ll use EMDR and CBT to help you come to terms with your situation, set goals and receive positive outcomes.Â
Using EMDR for emotional eating disorder - what is EMDR?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) therapy was originally developed to treat post-traumatic stress disorders, including experiences of war. It is highly effective for trauma but has since been found to have far reaching applications for many different types of disorders.
How does EMDR help?
EMDR is highly effective for trauma but has since been found to have far reaching applications for many different types of disorders. EMDR helps us work with people and treat them without needing to discuss any of the specifics.Â
In an EMDR therapy session, we’ll stimulate both the left and right sides of your brain using a range of techniques including hand movements, alternating lights or vibrating sensors, while the client recalls the event which is the cause of the anxiety. This helps the brain make sense of these events, reprocessing the memory and releasing the negative emotions and associations of it.Â
EMDR in more detail
Imagine watching a film back in your mind of an incident or trigger which made you anxious, and then pausing it at the worst moment: the part that really encapsulates the trauma or upset you felt. That’s what we get our patients to do, replaying it in their mind. We ask them to notice something in the past, and then notice something in the present. We call it bilateral stimulation.
We do this because the part of our brain that processes that event, the reptilian part of our brain, doesn’t know how to handle the incident or trigger and can’t store it as a memory. EMDR helps to change that.
What actually happens in an EMDR therapy session?
The EMDR therapy stimulates both the left and right sides of the brain, using a range of techniques including hand movements, alternating lights or vibrating sensors, while the client recalls the event which is the cause of the anxiety.
The effect of EMDR is similar to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, during which the brain makes sense of the day’s events, reprocessing the memory and releasing negative emotions and associations. Our trained EMDR therapists will guide you through the process helping you to work through your particular experiences.
How does CBT help?
CBT is particularly effective in treating emotional eating disorders, looking at the relationship between your thoughts and feelings, and how they make you ‘default’ to certain behaviours. It’s seen as a different kind of ‘talking therapy’ that aims to solve a person’s current problems. Â
This method also helps you become your own therapist where you can use the skills you have learned. By using CBT, we can help make you aware of what your own defaults are, recognising the different responses for what they are.Â
How we provide it
We offer therapy & counselling sessions in person at our London offices, over the telephone and online. The sessions usually last from 30 minutes to an hour; and our courses usually consist of around 6 to 12 sessions.Â
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