Are you intensely preoccupied with your shape and weight? Are you preoccupied by dieting, restriction, food rules, and feared foods? Do you use methods such as extreme exercise, fasting or purging to compensate for food intake? Has this impacted your ability to function and socialize with friends and family? Do you experience uncontrollable binges which can worsen the cycle of restriction, guilt and shame?
Eating disorders are complex and serious mental and physical health conditions. However, help is available. According to evidence-based guidelines such as the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE guidelines), Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT-E) is a scientifically proven therapy for Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. CBT-E helps by empowering you to understand your disorder, regularize eating, reduce binging, and compensatory behaviours and improve your relationship with your body and self-esteem.
More About
Did you know that it is a myth that people with eating disorders are underweight? In fact, most sufferers experience normal or unremarkable weight.
If weight isn’t the common denominator among eating disorders, then what is?
An intense preoccupation and over-evaluation of one’s self esteem on weight and shape and their control.
That is, whereas most people evaluate themselves on a variety of domains (academics, work, relationships, hobbies), sufferers are intensely preoccupied with only one area of their self-esteem: their body.
Who has an eating disorder?
Another common misconception is that only young women suffer from eating disorders. In fact, eating disorders do not discriminate based on gender, age, socio-economic, ethnic or racial backgrounds. Furthermore, the lifetime prevalence of eating disorders is around 3 to 5% of the population.
What are some signs and symptoms of an eating disorder
- Excessive dieting, counting calories, applying rigid food rules, having feared foods.
- Excessive checking of one’s body, excessive weighing, or extreme avoidance of these.
- Experiencing a loss of control overeating, experiencing a “binge”- i.e., eating in a short period of time a large amount of food that leaves one feeling uncomfortable, in pain, or out of control.
- Attempts to control one’s weight through excessive exercise, fasting, purging, or the misuse of medications.
- Avoidance of social events where food will be served
- Avoidance of eating with others and/or eating in secret.
- Development of physical symptoms and potentially serious health problems; including low weight, bradycardia, difficulty concentrating, amenorrhea (loss of menses), osteoporosis, hypokalemia.
Eating Disorders do not occur in a vacuum, and those with an eating disorder often will experience other comorbid disorders including depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Eating Disorders we Treat
1 – Anorexia Nervosa is defined by the following symptoms:
- Excessive restriction of caloric intake resulting in low body weight
- Intense fear of gaining weight
- Distorted or disturbed way in which one’s body and weight are viewed. Typically, individuals with eating disorders can also fail to see the serious health risks associated with their low body weight
- Although some individuals with anorexia exclusively restrict their food intake, others also engage in binge eating.
2 – Bulimia Nervosa is defined by the following symptoms:
- Recurring binge episodes that are experienced as out of control
- Recurring use of compensatory behaviours to stop weight gain, such as vomiting, fasting, excessive exercise and misuse of medications (e.g., laxatives, diuretics)
3 – Other Specified Eating Disorders
- Eating disorders that do not fulfill full diagnostic criteria, including atypical anorexia, bulimia nervosa of low frequency or duration and purging disorder.
What does CBT offer?
- Together with your therapist, we explore how eating has become a problem and your personal reasons for change.
- Provide help with weight restoration and regulating eating
- Eliminate inappropriate weight control behaviours
- Help understand triggers to binge eating and help find alternative ways to cope with such triggers.
- Help find other sources of self-esteem other than weight and shape.
Research demonstrates that early detection and treatment of eating disorders is associated with improved outcome.
If you believe you may be suffering from an eating disorder or for more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Please note that we provide outpatient individual therapy sessions only (not inpatient). As such, we are only able to treat eating disorders of mild to moderate intensity, but not severe or complex.
We encourage you to contact us for more information and/or to book a screening session of 20-minute duration (the fee is $50). If based on our brief assessment of your needs we determine that we cannot provide the level of service that you need, we will make recommendations and you will be reimbursed for the evaluation. We look forward to speaking with you!