I’ve already mentioned before on the podcast that eating disorders are some of the deadliest mental health conditions out there. Yet there are psychological treatments that are designed to help people with eating disorders to improve their lives, have a healthier and less maladaptive relationship with food and to improve their quality of life. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll be introduced to a range of psychological treatments for eating disorders that are explored a lot more amongst other topics in my brand-new book CBT For Eating Disorders. If you enjoy learning about mental health, clinical psychology and eating disorders then this will be a great episode for you.
Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by CBT For Eating Disorders And Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
What Are Psychological Treatments For Eating Disorders? Extract From CBT For Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (COPYRIGHT 2024 Connor Whiteley)
As we start to turn our attention towards the psychological methods used in treating eating disorders before focusing on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for the rest of this section of the book, I want to quickly mention some pharmacological treatments.
Interestingly enough, antidepressants are the most common form of drug treatment for eating disorders with there being some evidence that this treatment can reduce bulimia symptoms (e.g. Bellini & Merli, 2004).
Now as always what I find interesting about biological methods for psychological conditions is that pharmacological treatments aren’t effective in the long term considering that a person’s drive for thinness and extreme dieting isn’t biological in nature, it is psychological. Therefore, biological treatments will never ever be able to help a person come up with more adaptive coping mechanisms for their psychological thoughts and drives.
Additionally, pharmacological treatments with anorexia have tended to be less successful (Pederson et al., 2003).
However, it’s important to know that antidepressant treatments for eating disorders do have significantly higher relapse and drop-out rates than psychological interventions. Again this comes back to drug treatments failing and being useless at targeting the psychological causes of a condition.
As a result, the best outcomes for eating disorders are when drug treatments are combined with CBT programmes.
Family Therapy and Eating Disorders
If we cast our minds back to a few chapters ago then I mentioned how family factors have a role in how eating disorders are maintained and developed in the first place, for that reason family therapy can be an effective way to treat eating disorders.
Also, this is one of the most common interventions used with eating disorders with the therapy being based on the idea that eating disorders hide important conflicts within the family.
Personally, I do enjoy systemic therapy because the idea of the family as a system is very useful and utterly fascinating. Of course, systemic theory doesn’t look at everything and it does miss out on psychological factors, but it is still interesting.
And there is no such thing as a perfect theory in clinical psychology.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Eating Disorders
CBT is the treatment of choice when it comes to eating disorders and even more so for (Wilson & Shafran, 2005) with this form of CBT being based on the cognitive model we looked at earlier developed by Fairburn et al. (1999). Since people with bulimia develop negative evaluations about themselves and have idealized beliefs about thinness, as well as distorted views of their own body shape.
All these areas and beliefs are challenged during a course of CBT and there is an Enhanced form of CBT that is used as well, and there’s a whole chapter dedicated to that form coming up next. CBT is really helpful for clients that are significantly underweight too.
What Are The Stages Of CBT For Bulimia?
We’ll this in more depth in a moment, but the four stages of CBT For Bulimia according to Fairburn (1985) are:
· Psychoeducation about the effects of purging, bingeing and mood.
· Modified eating patterns – small meals 5-6 times a day instead of bingeing to start off with.
· Altering the client’s dysfunctional attitudes about food, eating and the body.
· Teaching the client coping strategies to avoid bingeing & purging.
When a person with bulimia first starts CBT, the focus will be meal planning and stimulus control so instead of snacking and binge eating, the meals can be controlled more so they eat properly three times a day, or whatever the therapist deems appropriate.
Furthermore, cognitive restructuring is a core part of CBT so when it comes to Bulimia, this is used to address the client’s dysfunctional beliefs about their body shape and weight.
Then the focus shifts to become focused on developing relapse prevention methods so the eating disorder doesn’t return after therapy ends.
Overall, CBT for eating disorders is based on identifying the dysfunctional thinking processes that cause and maintain the disordered eating, as well as using behavioural exercises to test and modify these maladaptive beliefs.
CBT For Anorexia Nervosa
Whereas CBT For Anorexia focuses on different clinical features, because we know from other chapters that anorexia involves several cognitive distortions. For instance, the client has irrational beliefs about weight gain and food and they have an inaccurate perception of their body.
Therefore, this form of CBT aims to change these faulty thinking patterns, which the therapy assumes is what maintains the anorexic behaviour.
Now what makes this form of CBT so special is that if you think normal CBT is highly structured then this is even more so. Due to CBT for Anorexia is the most effective treatment we have at this point for short-term clients.
Although, if the client needs psychological help in the longer term then they might benefit more from family therapy or Interpersonal Psychotherapy.
Overall, whilst that was a quick whistle-stop tour of CBT for eating disorders, our next chapter focuses a lot more on Enhanced Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for eating disorders (Fairburn, 2008) and it might be my favourite chapter out of the entire book.
I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
CBT For Eating Disorders And Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
Have a great day.
Clinical Psychology Reference and Further Reading
Whiteley, C. (2024) CBT For Eating Disorders And Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia. CGD Publishing. England.
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