Specialism
Therapy for disordered eating
CBT for the food rules, the body-checking and the thinking behind them — with honesty about when specialist services are the right place instead.
Does this sound familiar?
Food takes up a great deal of room in your head. What you will eat, what you have already eaten, what you will do to make up for it. There are rules — some you could explain and some you could not — and breaking one can ruin a day.
You check. Mirrors, waistbands, the scales, pinching, photographs. The number changes how you feel about yourself for the rest of the day, whichever way it goes.
It might not look dramatic from outside. You may be a perfectly ordinary weight, hold down a job, feed your family well. And still be spending most of your mental energy on this, and still feel that eating without it running the show is something other people can do and you cannot.
It is also lonely in a particular way, because so much of it is socially applauded. Discipline, willpower, a clean diet, being good — the same behaviours that are quietly costing you get complimented at work and on your phone all day. That makes it unusually hard to notice when something has crossed a line.
How I work with this — and where I stop
The scope first, because it matters more here than almost anywhere else. I am not an eating disorder specialist and this is not a substitute for a specialist eating-disorder service or for medical monitoring. Anorexia nervosa, a significantly low or falling weight, purging, and eating that has affected your physical health all need a specialist team and a doctor keeping an eye on you. If that is what you are describing, I will say so at assessment and help you find the right door rather than take you on.
What I work with well is disordered eating that sits inside anxiety, OCD, low self-esteem or body image difficulty: rigid food rules, the mental arithmetic, body-checking and avoidance, eating in response to distress, and the harsh beliefs about worth and appearance underneath it all.
The method is CBT. We map the cycle, loosen the rules gradually as experiments rather than as willpower, drop the checking and comparing, and work on the self-criticism driving it. Where an eating pattern started as a way of coping with trauma, EMDR may be part of the work once things are stable enough.
Regular eating usually comes first, before any of the thinking work, and it is often the least popular part. Restriction — even mild, even accidental — reliably produces preoccupation with food and makes bingeing more likely, so no amount of insight will settle things while the eating pattern itself is driving them.
What to expect
Assessment covers the eating pattern honestly, including weight history and anything that has affected your physical health — not to judge it, but so we can be sure this is the right kind of help. If it is, work typically runs 12–20 weekly sessions of 50 minutes.
I will ask you to stay registered with a GP while we work, and I will always tell you plainly if I think you need a specialist eating disorder service. Being turned down for the right reason and pointed somewhere better is a good outcome, not a rejection.
Sessions run online across the UK and worldwide, or in person at Sanctuary Therapy Centre in Prestwich and Hebden Bridge. There is no weighing, no meal plan and no food diary you have to hand over — the records we keep are about the thinking, and they are yours.
Common questions
Do I need to have a diagnosed eating disorder? No — and much of what I see does not meet diagnostic criteria at all. Disordered eating is worth treating long before it becomes a diagnosis.
When would you say I need a specialist service instead? If your weight is significantly low or falling, if you are purging or using laxatives, if your physical health is affected, or if you are describing anorexia nervosa. I will say so at assessment rather than let us drift.
Will you weigh me or put me on a meal plan? No. That work belongs with a specialist team and a dietitian. What I work on is the thinking, the rules and the behaviours around eating.
Can therapy run alongside a specialist service? Often yes, with everyone's knowledge and agreement. I would want to know who else is involved so the work joins up rather than pulls against them.
Does binge eating count? Yes. Bingeing, and the restriction that usually precedes it, is one of the most common things I see here — and one of the most treatable, once the cycle rather than the willpower becomes the target.
Do I have to talk about my weight? We will talk about your eating and your health, and weight history comes into the assessment because it is part of knowing whether this is safe work for us to do together. What we will not do is treat a number as the measure of progress. The goals people usually want here are about mental space, not the scales: eating a meal without doing arithmetic, getting dressed without a verdict, thinking about something else.
Can sessions be in Spanish? Yes — I offer therapy in English and Spanish.
Ready to take the first step?
Send an enquiry and Gisela will be in touch within one working day.