DISORDERED EATING

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As a psychotherapist and counsellor in Edinburgh, I regularly treat issues relating to disordered eating. Disordered eating involves harmful eating patterns in various levels of severity, encompassing a wide range of problematic behaviours including restricting food, dieting, binge eating, purging, emotional eating. These patterns can arise from biological predispositions, psychological influences such as low self-esteem, perfectionism, or co‑occurring conditions like anxiety and depression, and sociocultural pressures that promote dieting, body ideals, and weight stigma. Environmental stressors or traumatic experiences can also contribute, with some individuals turning to dieting or food-related behaviours as a way to cope or regain a sense of agency.

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Are you experiencing any of the following:

 

• Avoiding meals or snacks, or providing justifications for restrictive intake.

• Adherence to a highly restrictive diet without recommendation from a licensed healthcare professional.

• Preoccupation with food, nutrition, or “healthy eating,” to the extent that it interferes with routine activities (e.g., team functions, celebratory events, or dining out).

• Preparing separate meals rather than consuming meals prepared for or consumed by the household.

• Withdrawal from typical social engagements or activities.

• Persistent concerns or verbalizations regarding perceived poor health, excess weight, or a desire to lose weight.

• Frequent mirror-checking to assess perceived bodily imperfections.

• Recurrent episodes of consuming unusually large quantities of food.

• Use of dietary supplements, laxatives, or herbal agents with the intention of inducing weight loss.

• Engagement in excessive physical activity, including avoidance of rest days, exercising despite injury or illness, or declining social or personal commitments to prioritize exercise.

• Presence of knuckle calluses consistent with self-induced vomiting.

• Dental enamel erosion suggestive of recurrent vomiting.

• Consistently leaving during or immediately after meals to use the restroom.

• Expressions of depressive affect, shame, guilt, or disgust related to eating behaviours.

• Eating secretly or concealing eating behaviours.

 

 

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MY EXPERTISE AND HOW PSYCHOTHERAPY CAN ASSIST WITH GRIEF AND BEREAVEMENT

 

THERAPIES & METHODS​

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Person Centred  |  Working collaboratively in the present, trusting in and acting from your unique needs, preferences and perspectives.

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Emotional Processing  |   Being with you, where you are

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Psychosomatic Awareness  |  Regulation tools to unify the body with the mind and process difficult emotions: develop self-awareness, create physiologic change

 

Existential  |  Exploration to establish meaning, purpose and value systems in life and relationships​

 

Psychoeducation | Develop understanding in your psychological state, clarifying ways to cope and thrive

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Psychodynamic |  Examine the past to understand how it effects present beliefs and behaviour​

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Creative Arts |  Integrate artistic mediums to further articulate and process emotional states 

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Attachment Theory |  Understand how early relationships shape current relational patterns

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Solution Focused  |  Draw on established character strength, resource and ability as a way to set goals to move forward and work towards

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Cognitive Behavioural  |  Challenge dysfunctional thought processes to reconstruct cognitive patterns, regulate emotion and improve coping strategies

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To discover more about psychotherapy, how we can work together and for any questions you have, please contact me ​​​​​​