Individual Eating Disorder Therapy Tailored to your Needs.
Eating disorders and disordered eating can affect people of all body sizes, ages and backgrounds. They are not defined by appearance alone, and you do not need to have a formal diagnosis to receive support.
If food, eating, body image, weight or exercise are taking up a lot of space in your mind, causing distress, or affecting your quality of life, it may be worth reaching out.
Individual eating disorder therapy with me offers a safe, compassionate and non-judgemental space to understand your relationship with food, your body and yourself.
Together, we’ll explore the role your eating disorder has played in your life, including the ways the eating disorder may have helped you cope, manage difficult emotions, feel safe, or create a sense of control. Therapy is not about blame or forcing change before you are ready. It is about building enough safety, trust and understanding needed for meaningful, lasting change.
Eating disorder recovery often involves more than changing behaviours around food. While practical support with regular eating, binge eating, purging, restriction, body checking or food rules is an important part of therapy, we may also explore the deeper emotional, relational and body-based patterns that sit underneath. This can include shame, self-criticism, perfectionism, trauma, emotional overwhelm, or feeling disconnected from your body and your needs.
MIchelle’s approach to therapy for eating disorders.
Therapy begins with an assessment, which is an opportunity for me to understand what has brought you here, what is happening in your life, how the eating difficulties have developed, and what you are hoping for from treatment. From there, we build a shared understanding of what may be keeping things going and develop a treatment plan that is tailored to your needs. Treatment is grounded in Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT-E), the leading evidence-based treatment for eating disorders, while drawing upon approaches such as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Schema Therapy, EMDR and somatic or body-based work when they are relevant to your individual needs and goals.
Eating disorder therapy can be longer-term work, particularly when difficulties have been present for some time or are connected to trauma, attachment patterns, or longstanding ways of coping. Recovery is often not linear, and it is common to feel both wanting change and afraid of it. Throughout therapy, I will work collaboratively with you and regularly check in about how the work is feeling, so that treatment can be paced in a way that feels safe, respectful and sustainable.
When appropriate, therapy may also involve collaborating with your GP, dietitian, psychiatrist, or other health professionals to provide safe, coordinated care.
Who Michelle Supports.
I work with adults (21+) with the following eating disorders and body image concerns:
Binge Eating Disorder
Emotional or comfort eating
Bulimia
Body image concerns
Other Specified Eating or Feeding Disorders (OSFED)
Anorexia or ‘Atypical’ Anorexia
While my main clinical focus is on the treatment of eating disorders and related body image issues, I also have wide-ranging experience working with co-occurring and stand-alone struggles, including:
Anxiety
Depression
Stress and Burnout
Trauma
PTSD
Complex PTSD
Low Self-Esteem
Relational and Interpersonal Issues
Life Transitions
I’m not sure if I have an eating disorder.
Many people are unsure whether what they are experiencing “counts” as an eating disorder. You do not need to fit a particular stereotype, look a certain way, or have every symptom for your struggles to be real.
You may benefit from support if you notice things like:
feeling preoccupied with food, eating, weight or shape
restricting food or skipping meals
binge eating or feeling out of control around food
purging, over-exercising, or trying to “make up for” eating
intense guilt, shame or anxiety after eating
rigid food rules or fear around certain foods
frequent body checking, body avoidance, or distress about your appearance
feeling that thoughts about food or your body are affecting your mood, relationships, or daily life
What is an eating disorder?
An eating disorder is a serious mental health condition involving distressing patterns of eating, body image and coping. These patterns are often connected to deeper emotional, relational or psychological difficulties, and can affect both physical health and emotional wellbeing.
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Binge Eating Disorder involves episodes of eating large amounts of food while feeling out of control or unable to stop. These episodes are often accompanied by shame, guilt, distress, or eating in secret. It is not simply “overeating” – it is a painful and often isolating experience that deserves support.
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Emotional or comfort eating involves using food to soothe, numb, distract from, or cope with difficult feelings. Many people turn to food during times of stress, loneliness, sadness or overwhelm. This does not always mean an eating disorder is present, but if it feels frequent, distressing, or hard to control, therapy can help you understand what is driving it and find other ways of responding.
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Bulimia involves cycles of binge eating followed by attempts to compensate, such as vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise. Often, these patterns are accompanied by shame, secrecy, and feeling trapped in a cycle that is difficult to stop. Bulimia can affect people of any body size and may not always be obvious from the outside.
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Body image concerns involve distress, shame, criticism or preoccupation related to your body, shape, weight or appearance. You may find yourself body checking, avoiding mirrors, comparing yourself to others, or feeling disconnected from your body. Body image struggles can exist on their own or alongside an eating disorder, and they can have a significant impact on self-esteem and daily life.
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OSFED is a category used when someone is experiencing significant eating disorder symptoms, but their experiences do not fit neatly into one specific diagnosis. This does not mean the problem is less serious. Many people with OSFED experience substantial distress and deserve the same care, understanding and support as anyone with a more familiar eating disorder label.
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Anorexia involves restriction of food intake, fear of weight gain, and a strong influence of body weight or shape on self-worth. Some people also experience intense body checking, rigid food rules, or difficulty recognising the seriousness of what they are going through.
Atypical Anorexia includes the same kinds of thoughts, behaviours and distress, even if a person is not in a body that others expect. This is important, because eating disorders can be severe at any body size, and people often go unsupported when they do not fit common stereotypes.
FAQs.
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Eating disorder therapy is tailored to your individual needs, experiences and goals. It may involve understanding the factors that contribute to and maintain difficulties with food, eating and body image, while developing practical strategies to support more regular and flexible eating, reduce eating disorder behaviours, and respond differently to difficult thoughts and emotions. Therapy may also explore concerns such as body image, perfectionism, self-criticism, anxiety, trauma or low self-worth.
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“Disordered eating” is a broad term used to describe patterns of eating, exercise or body-related thoughts and behaviours that may be distressing or disruptive but do not necessarily meet the diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder.
An eating disorder is a recognised mental health condition involving persistent difficulties with eating, food, body image or related behaviours that significantly affect a person’s physical health, emotional wellbeing or daily life.
The distinction is not always clear-cut, and disordered eating can still be serious and deserving of support. You do not need to have a formal diagnosis or feel that your difficulties are “severe enough” to seek therapy.
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Often, yes. Eating disorder recovery frequently works best as a multidisciplinary approach, and where appropriate, I liaise with your GP, dietitian or psychiatrist so your care feels coordinated rather than fragmented. Not everyone needs the full team, but we can work out what is right for you.
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It varies. Some people benefit from shorter, focused work, while longer-standing or more complex difficulties often need longer-term therapy. We'll discuss what's likely to help in your assessment session and review this together as treatment progresses.
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Finding the right therapist is important. Our first sessions provide an opportunity to understand your goals, discuss how I work, and decide together whether my approach feels like a good fit for your needs.
Read more about eating disorders.
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For many people navigating an eating disorder, the body can feel like a place of discomfort, mistrust, or disconnection. It may feel overwhelming, numb, or as though it has become something to manage or escape from rather than live in. Rebuilding a sense of safety and awareness in your own body is often a quiet but important part of recovery.
This is not about body positivity, or focusing intensely on how your body looks or feels. It is about something more gradual: learning to notice what is happening inside you, to tolerate and respond to those experiences with curiosity rather than criticism, and to gently begin relating to your body as a source of information, care and support rather than a problem to be solved.
One framework that informs this work comes from Professor Catherine Cook-Cottone, a psychologist and researcher whose work brings together eating disorders, embodiment, mindfulness, yoga and self-regulation. Her model describes wellbeing as involving attunement - the ability to notice inner experience, including thoughts, emotions and body sensations - while staying connected to relationships, community and the broader contexts of your life. From this perspective, eating disorder symptoms can sometimes reflect a disruption in that attunement: when the body has come to feel unsafe, critical or untrustworthy, it becomes harder to recognise your own needs, regulate difficult emotions, or experience your body as something that supports rather than threatens you.
Practices that gently support body awareness, such as grounding, breath, mindful movement and compassionate attention to bodily experience, can help rebuild that sense of safety over time. The aim is not perfection or insight, but a gradual shift in the relationship you have with yourself: from one of disconnection or conflict, toward something steadier and more kind.
Reference
Cooke-Cottone, C. (2020). Embodiment and the Treatment of Eating Disorders: The Body as a Resource in Recovery. W.W Norton & Company.
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Neurodivergence - an umbrella term that includes autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and other forms of neurocognitive difference - is increasingly recognised as an important factor in eating disorder presentation and recovery. Research shows that feeding difficulties and eating disorders are more common among neurodivergent people than in the broader population, and that neurodivergent people can experience poorer outcomes with standard treatments. This may be related to a range of factors that shape how eating difficulties develop and are maintained, including differences in sensory processing, interoception (the ability to read and interpret internal body signals such as hunger and fullness), executive function, and emotional regulation.
For some neurodivergent people, food and eating can be closely connected to sensory sensitivity, the need for predictability and routine, difficulties identifying body states, or the accumulated effects of navigating a world that was not designed with their needs in mind. Understanding neurodivergence in this context does not change the seriousness of the eating disorder, but it does shape how treatment is best approached. Care that is neurodiversity-affirming is more likely to feel safe, relevant, and effective.
For more information about eating disorders and neurodivergence, visit NEDC
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For some people, eating disorder symptoms develop in the context of trauma, chronic stress, attachment wounds, or experiences that have left them feeling unsafe, overwhelmed or disconnected from themselves. Restriction, binge eating, purging, over-exercise, or rigid control around food can function as ways of coping - helping to manage distress, create a sense of predictability, or protect against feelings that are hard to experience.
Understanding the role trauma may play can help make sense of why symptoms sometimes feel so hard to shift. In these situations, treatment often needs to support both recovery from the eating disorder and a greater sense of emotional and bodily safety. This means paying attention not only to food and behaviours, but also to shame, self-criticism, dissociation, nervous system responses, and the ways your body may have become a place of distress rather than support.
If trauma feels like a significant part of your own experience, you may find it helpful to read more on my trauma therapy page.
You don’t have to be certain to seek help.
If you are wondering whether your relationship with food or your body has become too difficult, that concern matters. You do not need to wait until things get worse or until you feel “sick enough” to reach out for support.