Counselling can help us to understand what causes our eating problems and to use that awareness – with the counsellor’s support – to interrupt the addictive patterns of eating.
Causes of Eating Disorders
Although the focus of eating difficulties is usually on the food, the cause usually sits in the emotions and that’s where it can be worked with. It often comes down to feeling better about ourselves, but that isn’t always that easy. Unfortunately we often inherit very uncomfortable feelings about `not being valuable or important` as a person as we grow up. When experiences in life remind us of these “bad” negative feelings, we can either use excessive eating as a way to squash these feelings and put them out of our mind or restrict our eating excessively to try and re-assert control over our life. This can feel like it helps in the immediate moment but like anything we use to excess to distract or numb, it does nothing to deal with the underlying problem, so its back there tomorrow and the next day.
Unfortunately it can have all sorts of unhelpful or downright harmful effects on our body (like anything else in excess.) So it’s short-term gain for a long-term pain.
Counselling can offer long-term gain, for short term discomfort (with the support of a counsellor throughout), as the issues get addressed & resolved and the addictive eating pattern gets interrupted.
This process is completed together with a counsellor, so you have their support throughout and are not tackling it by yourself.
Where can I get Help?
To speak to one of our team and make an appointment, call us on 0121 429 1758 or email: bcpc@counselling-direct.co.uk. If you would prefer us to call you, please click here to request a callback. See all contact details here.
Jane Fonda a two time Oscar winner for best actress and now a 79 year old women’s rights activist has talked about being sexually abused as a child and raped. She discovered that her mother was also sexually abused as a child of 8 years old and killed herself at 42, when Jane was just 12. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/03/jane-fonda-sexual-abuse-brie-larson?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet
Jane has also talked about suffering from anorexia and bulimia, but finding her identity and freedom by being able to talk about her abuse and not suffocate in the shame of that.