Eating disorders

A difficult relationship with food is rarely about food. Eating difficulties — restricting, bingeing, purging, compulsive rules around eating or exercise, or a relationship with your body that has become a battle — are usually a way of managing something that has no other outlet: distress, control, self-worth, things that feel unsayable.

How therapy helps

Effective therapy works on both levels at once. There is the practical level — gently loosening the rules, rituals and cycles that keep an eating difficulty alive, with the structure and care this requires. And there is the level of meaning: what the difficulty does for you, what it protects you from, and what would need to be different for it to become unnecessary. I'm registered with the NCFED (National Centre for Eating Disorders), and this work is always paced, collaborative and free of judgement.

Where there is physical risk, therapy works best alongside medical oversight from your GP — something we'd discuss openly in the first session.

What we'd work on

Understanding what the eating difficulty manages for you; softening the rules and the self-criticism that enforce it; rebuilding a steadier relationship with food, body and self-worth; and addressing what lies underneath, so recovery holds.