Binge Eating disorder treatment; your psychological therapy options.

Are you trying to heal yourself from your binge eating disorder? Where do you start with treatment for binge eating when there is so much choice? In this post, I am talking you through Binge Eating disorder treatment, your psychological therapy options and giving you the pro’s and cons for you to make an informed choice.

What is binge eating disorder?

Binge eating Disorder, also known as compulsive eating disorder, is characterised by eating a large amount of food in one sitting. It is different from bulimia in that there is no purging involved. Someone with binge eating disorder may be overweight, but not necessarily so. They could be struggling between binge eating and then going on a very restrictive diet.

Symptoms of binge eating disorder

People with Binge Eating experience some or all of the following

. Eating large amounts of food in a short sitting

. A feeling of a loss of control during the episode

. A binge eating episode is described as eating a lot more rapidly than normal, eating until feeling uncomfortably full, eating large amounts of food when not hungry, eating alone so no one sees, feeling shame, disgust or guilt after a binge eating episode.

. Feeling disgust around your binge eating

. Bingeing at least one day a week for at least three months.

To get a clear definition, consult the DSM5, which is the diagnostical Statistical manual of mental health disorders, 5th edition. This is the manual mental health practitioners use to be able to diagnose.

Causes of binge eating

In my experience of helping over hundreds of people with Binge eating, I can say it comes from a number of causes.

1. Trauma, and or other mental health conditions. The way the brain develops after suffering from a trauma or several truamas or with mental health conditions could leave us with a propensity to use outside sources as a source of comfort and love. Food could be one of those.

2. Your parents or caregivers could have had a disordered relationship with food. You could have been in conditions where food was scarce and now that you are an adult with freedom, you can’t stop eating large quantities of food, because you can.

3. Peer pressure. When growing up as a teenager we feel this enormous pressure to fit in. Part of that could be to be slim and fit. Our eating may start off as dieting, but as we get older it gets more polarised which leads to episodes of binge eating. The longer we try to ignore our eating patterns, the harder it can be to stop.

4. Difficult emotions. We are rarely taught as a child how to manage our emotions. Throughout life we will have difficult emotions to deal with and if we do not have an emotionally regulated adult to learn from, we can turn to food as a way to calm us down. This can give rise over time to disordered eating and compulsive overeating.

5. Restrictive eating/dieting. What might start out as a quest for weight loss, can over time turn into symptoms of binge eating. As the restriction gets more stringent and food rules come in, so too can our urge for something we feel we are missing out on. Over time the binge frequency increases and it can be hard to stop.

Treatments for binge eating

Effective treatments for binge eating can include a mix of medical, psychological and behavioral therapy. There is often not a one size fits all. One type of therapy might work for someone, but not someone else, so it is a case of doing your research, speaking to healthcare professionals and working and trialling what suits you best.

Binge Eating Disorder Self-help

Guided self-help will go a long way towards helping you get started. A place to start is to become aware of your triggers and what compensatory behaviors follow. It is the start of being introspective so you can find out more about yourself and become aware of your negative emotions and what relation food has to them.

Self-help treatment might include reading books, workshops, and guided self-help programmes like online courses. You will no doubt follow a process and they may be quite generic, but nonetheless, if you are committed you will benefit from it.

Self-help will go a long way to helping you get started and become aware of what your patterns of behaviour are and also your triggers. It is the start of being introspective so you can find out more about yourself and become aware of your emotions and what relation food has to them.

Self-help might include reading books, doing workshops, and doing short courses online. You will no doubt follow a process and they may be quite generic, but nonetheless, if you are committed you will benefit from it.

Binge Eating Disorder Support Group

A support group is such a powerful ally in your fight against Binge Eating because you will be able to meet others who are going through similar issues and you can learn from them. When you are going through tough times they will be the ones who understand you and can support you because they will have the same experience as you.

Negatives – Following a generic process and doing it yourself will only get you so far. We can’t see or change what we don’t know about ourselves. With self-help, we are not going to be able to see our blind spots. Nobody is going to challenge our way of thinking to help change it.

Positives – We may meet new friends in support groups. We find what others have done that could help us. It’s cheap.

Beat Binge Eating Support group is a great place to start for information.

Once you get to a point where you are not improving, rather than giving up, this is where I would start investing in a therapist.

CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)

This is a form of talking therapy. The therapist helps you to identify patterns of thoughts and behaviours that are leading to your Binge Eating disorder. The idea is to switch negative language patterns and forms of thoughts into more positive ones. It is based on the theory that in Binge Eating, we will have lots of negative thoughts leading us to binge eat. An example would be; “I am not happy, I hate my body” This could be changed to “I am ok, my body is ok” It is working in the present with your language. For instance, I had a client who used to say I have been bad today because they had eaten something not healthy. It was not helpful to think they had been bad as then in came other self-deprecating thoughts like I am not very good.

Using CBT, my aim is to get them to see the positive or where it is not so bad. I asked – what is so bad about eating a cake? – I will put on weight? And what is so bad about that? We keep going and we might compare the bad behaviour to something very bad such as murdering someone. We may discuss bad being subjective. It is helping the person find some acceptance with where they are and some perspective on their behaviour.

Positives are – It helps people gain a different and more positive perspective on their thoughts and behaviours. It helps build awareness into the thought patterns that are keeping them stuck with their binge eating.

Negatives – It does not go and heal behaviours from childhood. Such as abuse of any form. It helps with presenting behaviours but not ones that have been around for a very long time.

Hypnotherapy

This is where you are put into a very relaxed state and in this state, you are more open to suggestions and more open to trying new behaviours. The therapist will discuss with you first what your situation is and what you want to achieve and what you would like your behaviours to be. It is a really nice sensation and definitely helps you to become more relaxed within yourself and about life.

I use this with some of my clients and we record the sessions so when they go home, they can listen to it again and it helps them to be more motivated and confident about themselves.

Positives are- It is very good for relaxing the argumentative, that parts of us that sabotage ourselves.

Negatives – Some people are so anxious and tense that they cannot do it at first, so at the beginning they just can’t relax. It is a skill like any other. It takes practise to get better at it.

Psychotherapy

The therapist will use a range of talking therapy and exercises to help you find the root cause of your issue. You will discuss your patterns of thoughts and behaviours, but also where they come from. You may well talk about your childhood and do a lot of healing there.

For example one of my clients came to me because they had done some work on their own but could not stop their binge eating and could not understand where it was coming from. We would take a pattern of behaviour and see that it stemmed from her childhood. For example, we worked out through talking that she binged when she had had an argument with her boss. She felt worthless and anxious.

When we delved deeper, it actually reminded her of how her father used to treat her. Each time this boss was horrible, unconsciously she felt as if she was with her Dad and was reacting as if that was the case. We worked on that childhood aspect of her relationship with her Dad and that stopped the binges.

Positives – Will get to the cause and will help you gain new behaviours and will stop your binge eating, so long as you stick with it. It is a very thorough form of therapy.

Negatives – It can take time and you have to be committed, a lot of people when the going gets tough they stop and then they don’t achieve what they set out to. You have to be prepared to work through your issues. It can be tough if you are not used to talking about your feelings or feeling your feelings. It can at times feel as if you are not getting anywhere, which is why it can be a lengthy process. I would go down this route if you have only got so far with the self-help and CBT and you are still not seeing the results.

If you’d like to know more about how therapy works exactly, see my other post here.

Other support

I have talked about psychological therapies and binge eating therapy for binge eating disorder. I think it would be a very beneficial support to also get dietary help from a dietician. Because of years of poor eating habits, a dietician can give you guidelines and recommend certain foods based on your needs.

Whatever support you have, it will be worthwhile.

Further Reading

Binge Eating Therapy, What to expect

How to stop Binge Eating in 5 easy steps

Binge Eating Disorder, the symptoms and signs to look out for