Using CBT Techniques to Manage Eating Disorder Behaviors

Eating disorders (or disordered eating) are complex mental health disorders that center around difficulties or changes in eating behaviors and exercise habits. These disorders are marked by obsessions with weight loss, food, or body shape. While it may seem that eating disorders are only about food and weight, they are complex illnesses that often co-occur with anxiety and depression. It’s common for eating disorders to be a way for people suffering to control some aspect of their life when their lives feel out of control. There is not one single cause for eating disorders, and they do not discriminate against gender, age, or social status.

What Is Disordered Eating?

Disordered eating is any behavior that involves controlling food intake by restriction or irregular eating patterns. People who struggle with disordered eating may struggle with restrictive eating, binge eating, emotional eating, or bingeing and purging. Disordered eating can be present without a full eating disorder in some cases. Disordered eating refers to the act of disturbances in food, while eating disorders are diseases that include disordered eating.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy that focuses on how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected. This type of therapy teaches people how to recognize and challenge distorted thoughts and teaches coping skills to help with stressful situations. CBT focuses on changing patterns that may be leading to difficulties instead of being perfect. This type of therapy is used to treat anxiety, depression, OCD, and many other mental health conditions.

How Does CBT Help with Disordered Eating?

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a great form of treatment for eating disorders or disordered eating because it targets the main struggles of the disorder. For example, CBT teaches us how to identify and reframe distortions in thinking. People who struggle with disordered eating often struggle with distortions in their thinking that make them believe their disordered eating patterns are necessary. As we mentioned above, CBT helps patients understand how their behaviors are related to their thoughts and feelings. For example, someone who struggles with binge eating might learn through CBT that when they restrict their food, they are more likely to binge. They also might learn that they feel guilty or shameful after bingeing. These feelings of guilt and shame can then lead to more disordered behavior. Learning how these cycles work can help empower people struggling with disordered eating to put a stop to the cycle. Cognitive behavioral therapy can also help people struggling with disordered eating challenge the rules that they have created around food.

CBT Techniques for Disordered Eating

There are many different ways to approach recovery from disordered eating. However, one of the best ways is through cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. These techniques can be used and strengthened alongside therapy with the trust of a licensed therapist.

Cognitive Restructuring: Cognitive Restructuring is a tool within CBT that focuses on recognizing and reframing distortions in thinking. CBT teaches us that there are many common distortions that people experience in their thinking patterns. People struggling with disordered eating may struggle with cognitive distortions such as black and white thinking, discounting the positive, and overgeneralization. Patients can work with their therapist to reframe the distortions in their thinking. With time, patients will begin to understand and change the distorted beliefs they have around food and themselves.
Body Image Work: Working through body image concerns is an important part of recovering from disordered eating. CBT can help patients learn to recognize the errors in their thought patterns that can lead to difficulties with body image. Patients can reframe their distorted thinking to create more realistic thoughts about their bodies. They can then use these thoughts and affirmations to help improve how they view their bodies. Many people who struggle with eating disorders also struggle with body dysmorphia. Body dysmorphia is when people focus and obsess over perceived flaws that are not based in reality. People who struggle with body dysmorphia typically spend many hours each day thinking about their bodies and how others perceive them.
Behavioral Experiments: Behavioral Experiments are recovery tools that are aimed at testing the beliefs that a person has. The purpose of these experiments is to test the accuracy of these beliefs and eventually prove to the person that they may not be true. Through these experiments, people can gather evidence to use to combat their distorted thinking patterns. It’s important to be gentle when performing these behavioral experiments. In most cases, people are extremely fearful of what would happen if they didn’t listen to their disordered thoughts. Professionals and patients themselves need to be patient during this process.
Coping Skills for Triggers: When someone struggles with disordered eating, they likely have a variety of triggers that can lead to negative feelings or actions. Coping skills are aimed at causing the person to pause or disengage from a disordered eating or eating disorder behavior. Other coping skills, such as deep breathing or meditation, can be used to help with grounding during stressful moments. People can also identify alternative behaviors that can be engaged in instead of disordered eating behaviors. People struggling with disordered eating can utilize this list of alternative behaviors whenever they are feeling triggered or urged to engage in an eating disorder behavior.

Eating disorders are complex mental health conditions that affect emotional and physical aspects of a person’s life. Eating disorders and disordered eating center around obsessions with food and body image. While it may seem like people who struggle with disordered eating are obsessed with food, there are usually deeper issues at play. People who struggle with disordered eating or eating disorders typically are searching for something in their lives they can control. As a result, they will try to control their food and their bodies. Thankfully, recovery is possible for people struggling with disordered eating. CBT can be used as a tool to help people recover from disordered eating and live fuller, happier lives. CBT teaches people with eating disorders that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected. Through learning this, patients can learn that they can make changes to their thoughts and behaviors in reference to their disordered eating. These changes can lead to changes in mood and more positive feelings. As a result, people will feel better about themselves and make better decisions moving forward. CBT tools can be used to help people work through some of the biggest difficulties surrounding eating disorders. For example, CBT can help people change their distorted thinking, work through body image struggles, and perform behavioral experiments to “test” their thoughts. These experiments can be used to help show people that their thoughts might not be based in fact. While eating disorders can be all-consuming and in some cases fatal, recovery is possible. Recovering from disordered eating can open doors for people that they didn’t know were possible. Eating disorder recovery is ready and waiting for anyone willing to put in the work to start.

If you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating, help is available. Reach out to us today if you are ready to start working together.

References

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/eating-disorders

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2928448/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9970735/

https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/body-dysmorphic-disorder

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7611432/

Keywords: disordered eating, cognitive behavioral therapy, body image, recovery tools