Guided Self-Help is an effective intervention for people with Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia Nervosa.

This approach is offered on a one to one basis and typically consists of 10 sessions 30 minute sessions. This intervention can facilitated online, via Microsoft Teams, or in-person at one of our bases.

The guided self-help sessions follow the framework set out in the book ‘Overcoming Binge Eating: The Proven Program to Learn Why You Binge and How You Can Stop’, Second Edition, by Dr Christopher Fairburn.

Sessions will help you identify triggers for binge eating, develop strategies to manage them and later explore your relationship with dieting and body image.

A psychological formulation is a joint effort between you and your therapist to build an understanding of your current eating difficulties.

It involves making links between various factors in your life that may be maintaining this difficulty as well as acknowledging the impact of past experiences in the development of your eating problem. Formulation work also acknowledges your strengths and resources.

Formulation work is the first step of most therapeutic models to treat eating disorders. It can, however, also be offered as a separate intervention if appropriate.

Creating a psychological formulation of your eating problem with your therapist might help clarify what type of treatment or support would be most suitable for you.

CBT-E is an evidence-based intervention for eating disorders. It is transdiagnostic, meaning that it is an effective intervention for all eating disorder presentations.

This treatment focuses primarily on the present and future, specifically on addressing and modifying the factors that maintain someone’s eating disorder. It addresses the origins of the eating problem as needed.

CBT-E involves approximately 20-40 50-minute sessions. The number of sessions needed depends on whether a period of weight restoration is required as the initial part of treatment.

CBT-E isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” treatment, meaning that the treatment will be tailored to your specific eating problem and your needs. You and your therapist will create a specific version of CBT-E to match the exact eating problem you are experiencing and understand what is keeping it going.

CBT-T is an evidence-based treatment for people with eating disorders where binge eating is a central feature.

CBT-T is strongly focused on the here-and-now and addresses the factors maintaining your eating disorder.

CBT-T starts with 4 sessions 50 minute, which can be extended to a maximum of 10 sessions. Sessions will only be extended if there have been lots of clear changes in the first 4 sessions. This is because early change is our best predictor of recovery from an eating disorder.

MANTRA is a treatment especially developed to help adults with Anorexia Nervosa. It is a particularly helpful therapy for patients whose eating disorder is maintained by multiple factors.

This treatment aims to help you understand and address the different maintaining factors.

MANTRA consists of nine core modules which are covered over 20-40 sessions of 50 minutes each. You and your therapist will discuss which factors and modules are most relevant to you and your eating problem and create a personalised version of the treatment.

SSCM involves talking to a clinician who will help you understand your eating disorder, and the problems it’s causing and how you may be able to make changes. This covers information around nutrition and how your eating habits may be contributing to your symptoms.

You will usually be offered around 20 sessions on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Together with your allocated clinician, you will set target goals and, over the course of the 20 weeks, you will work together to achieve these.

In order to support your recovery, it is likely that changes will need to be made to your eating patterns and diet. The team is able to offer support and guidance about meal plans, portion guidelines and nutrition.

Our specialist dietician is also available to see individuals where required. For example, when a co-morbid health condition is impacting dietary needs and eating patterns.

FREED is a national framework that has been developed by the South London and Maudsley Hospital in London, adopted by eating disorder services in England.

FREED is a specialist, targeted approach for 16 to 25-year-olds who present with an eating disorder for the first time. FREED overcomes barriers to early treatment and recovery and provides highly coordinated early care, with a central focus on reducing the duration of an untreated eating disorder.

If you are age 25 and under, we would contact you quickly normally via telephone to discuss your referral and symptoms and help you think around your needs and arrange further assessment where appropriate.

Many people with eating disorders present with other mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, OCD and other psychiatric disorders.

If these conditions are interfering with your treatment or require attention and this is best offered within our specialist eating disorder team, one of our doctors may see you to discuss whether prescription of medication may be beneficial.

In this case, advice will be given to you and your GP will be asked to issue a prescription.

Sometimes, despite receiving appropriate treatment, some people struggle to make progress and require a different type of support.

In these cases, we may offer a treatment review with one of our senior practitioners and your allocated key worker.

This may lead to stopping the treatment if this is not the right time for you, a change in your treatment or exploration of alternative treatment settings such as day programme or inpatient care.