Treatment for Binge Eating Disorder
You might hide it well, but you feel out of control with your body, food, and weight. You feel worried about people judging your food choices or making comments about your body. You might promise yourself you won't binge anymore, or buy more food on your way home, but obsessive thoughts and urges bombard you. Then you beat yourself up or feel like you failed. You have tried everything but you can’t stop binging, and you feel ashamed and desperate for help. Ultimately, you want a better relationship with food, your body, and weight. You want to be able to eat normally, maybe even intuitively. Together, we can heal your relationship with food, so you can live the happy life you envision for yourself.
Food and feelings are deeply intertwined for individuals suffering from Binge Eating Disorder and emotional overeating. I can help you learn new ways to manage the out-of-control feelings around food. Eating becomes a survival skill for coping with stress and intense feelings like anxiety and depression. During and leading up to a binge, you might have feelings of comfort, relaxation or even euphoria while eating; it can feel like “comfort, vacation, numb out, or escape”. In the short-term, bingeing eases overwhelming feelings, but as the binge ends, comfort is replaced with shame, self-loathing, guilt, and feelings of helplessness. Equal to the emotional pain, the body is left in physical pain and extreme fullness, causing a sedative 'hangover' like effect. I have helped people who tried to control their eating for decades, turning to diets, fasting, and goals for weight loss, learn to break the binge-restrict cycle. Without help this cycle continues to repeat itself, creating vicious patterns of self-loathing, dieting and bingeing. A binge or chronic overeating can feel like an unbreakable obsession with food, body image, weight, self-loathing, and urges for more.
My Approach to Treatment: I use a blend of evidence-based treatment modalities and interventions to help you recover from binge eating and cultivate an enjoyable relationship with food, body image, and mindful movement. Your treatment will be unique to you, here is a sneak peek of some of the topics we will address in our sessions:
Mindfulness Therapy
Behavioral Interventions
Emotional Regulation
Experiential Therapy
Urge Reduction Models (Brainspotting/EMDR)
Build internal awareness of triggers
Trauma Therapy - Address underlying wounds fueling binges
Build a toolbox of coping skills to help you during urges
Explore and address Nutrition, Food, Movement, Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity
Psychoeducation related to the neurobiological, sociocultural, and psychological components of binge eating disorder