Eating Disorder Therapy in Sheffield
Often, people I work with have already explored the diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder but still have questions. Whether there is a label resonates exactly for you, or you just know that you struggle with food, eating disorder therapy can help. I work with restrictive eating, bingeing, bulimia and ARFID, and anyone who has a difficult relationship with food but doesn’t meet all the criteria for one of these. Most people with eating disorders don’t really fit neatly into one of the labels, and many people I work with don’t either.
Do I have an Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders are about how you think, feel and behave around food.
There are various thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are common eating disorders, and these are what I would look for in an assessment session. I’m not expecting you to tick all these boxes, but I imagine that you might recognise some of them. Sometimes it only takes one of these to have a big impact on your life.
Thoughts that are common in eating disorders
- Do you spend a lot of time thinking about food, calories or your weight?
- Do you often compare how you look or what you eat to the people around you?
- Do you follow strict rules about what you should or shouldn’t eat?
- Do you worry that once you start eating, you won’t be able to stop?
- Do you feel fat when you eat something you shouldn’t?
Feelings you might experience
- Do you feel scared, anxious or guilty before or after eating?
- Does how you eat affect how you feel about yourself?
- Does you ever feel out of control around food?
Eating disorder behaviours
- Do you eat differently in front of other people to when you’re alone?
- Do you ever make yourself sick, or use laxatives or exercise to make up for what you’ve eaten?
- Do you restrict what you eat because it feels like you have no choice, or get caught in cycles of restricting and overeating?
- Do you exercise to make up for what you have eaten?
- Do you weigh yourself a lot, or avoid weighing yourself at all?
If the answer to any of these is yes, eating disorder therapy can help. You don’t have to have a diagnosis, be in crisis, or to look a certain way.
How Eating Disorder Therapy can Help
This looks different for everyone, depending on your goals. Things I work towards with clients often include:
- Food no longer taking up so much space or having so much power over how you feel.
- The food noise (or food voice) can become quieter, and constant background thoughts about what to eat, what you have eaten, and when you will eat can become quieter with that.
- Being able to eat out, or eat with friends, without worries about food taking over.
- Finding ways to manage emotions without food.
Working with food issues is hard at times, but people can and do see real change with the right support.
Understanding the whole picture
Humans have always eaten emotionally, and not just out of need. Eating disorders aren’t just about food or just about feelings: they’re about both. Experiences like trauma, depression, anxiety, loss, difficult relationships or overwhelming emotions can make someone vulnerable to an eating disorder. You might not know how it started.
Neurodivergence, like autism or ADHD might mean sensory differences shaping hunger, routines, eating and body awareness. Autistic, ADHD and AuDHD people can also find that disordered patterns help to regulate overwhelming emotions, or make it easier to mask or fit in.
Eating disorder therapy for autism, ADHD and AuDHD
Support for eating disorders often expects you to look, sound and behave a certain way: what you say, how distressed you seem, how you engage in sessions. If you don’t, for example because you’re autistic, you can end up not being taken seriously or being referred between ADHD and autism services and eating disorder services, when what you need is both together.
Eating disorder therapy often needs adapting to fit a neurodivergent brain. Things like sensory issues, or struggling to notice when you’re hungry, needing routine or struggling to plan, and overwhelming emotions (or the opposite: trouble identifying, understanding, describing, and processing feelings) all shape your relationship with food. These need to be worked with as part of therapy. They’re not about you being resistant, demand avoidant or unmotivated.
Whether or not you have a formal diagnosis, I adapt therapy around how you think, process information and experience the world. This includes:
- your communication style
- what you like, and what’s important to you, around food and more generally
- whether it’s easier to communicate while doing something, such as crafting
- how eye contact feels for you
- whether fidgeting or holding objects helps you to talk
- whether you need more time to process information or take breaks
A specialist approach adapted to you
I hold specialist practitioner training in eating disorders through the National Centre for Eating Disorders, as well as specific training in eating disorders in autistic people. I also work with neurodivergent clients who struggle with food, eating and body image.
My work is grounded in evidence-based approaches, and we work on the food and the feelings. We might use CBT tools to unpick unhelpful thought patterns, DBT skills to handle overwhelming emotions, or gentle exposure work if anxiety and avoidance are keeping things stuck. Sometimes I make use of other ways of working, like drawing, grounding using objects around us, or body-based work like tapping (EFT). If something we try doesn’t feel like a good fit, we’ll look at why and change it.
Working with the feelings and the eating at the same time
How you feel affects what you eat, and what you eat affects how you feel, so eating disorder therapy works best when it treats both together, not one after the other. I work with the food and the feelings at the same time. On the feelings side, this includes working with self-criticism, finding ways to cope with overwhelming emotions, and building self-esteem, so food takes up less space in your head, and you’ve got more energy for the rest of your life. On the eating side, we look at what normal eating looks like for you, build up more consistent and flexible eating patterns, work on food noise, and widen the range of foods you feel comfortable eating.
Eating disorders and difficulties I support
I work with a range of eating and food-related difficulties, including:
Bingeing is eating a large amount of food in a short space of time, often feeling out of control. It might feel like you can’t stop, or you’re outside your body. It can lead to a lot of guilt and feelings of shame. For some people, bingeing might involve eating a lot of the same food at once, or in a way that is unusual to them.
Restrictive eating means limiting how much or what you eat, sometimes through strict rules like never eating certain foods. There is often an intense fear of weight gain. It doesn’t always start with wanting to be thin, it can be about control, fear, or food no longer feeling safe. It can look different for neurodivergent individuals.
Bulimia involves cycles of bingeing followed by purging. This can be through vomiting, laxatives, excessive exercise or other ways of trying to get rid of what’s been eaten as soon as possible. It can feel like a way to stay in control, and it can give space or numbness from intense feelings.
Anorexia often involves an intense fear of gaining weight and a very restricted food intake. Often, someone with anorexia is underweight, but not always. You can have anorexia but not be underweight, known as atypical anorexia. Atypical anorexia is not necessarily a “mild” form, as it still has a huge impact on someone’s life. Anorexia can have different underlying causes in people who are neurodivergent.
ARFID, or Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder involves avoiding foods because of sensory sensitivities, fear of choking or vomiting, or a general lack of interest in food. It’s not simply fussy eating, and it isn’t always with the intention of losing weight.
Often, people haven’t heard of ARFID and it can be hard to explain it to other people.
Not everyone’s eating fits neatly into one category. You might restrict at times and lose control at others, or have experienced anorexia at one time, and then bulimia or binge-eating later in life.
You might also look recovered to others or have what people consider normal behaviours around food, but still struggle with the feelings.
What does eating disorder therapy look like?
We usually plan to work together for three months or more, reviewing progress after the assessment phase.
In early sessions, we will build a picture of how your eating difficulties started and what’s keeping you stuck. From there, we will agree a plan for therapy.
We’ll work on shifting the patterns that keep the eating disorder going. This might include becoming more flexible around food, responding differently to triggers, finding safer ways to manage difficult emotions, and working with self-esteem or body-image.
As things become more stable, we’ll work on making the changes you’ve made feel more solid, and plan for how you’ll stay on track.
Throughout therapy
Progress tracking
At times I use an app or food diary to help set goals, notice what’s going well and learn from what feels harder. We will also take time to notice what has changed as we work together.
Between sessions
We’ll agree a plan for what to work on between sessions, so you can keep moving forward outside the room.
Nutritional support
We’ll work towards eating in a way that works for you. Where it’s helpful, I work alongside a nutritionist or dietitian.
Working together
Some of the work is structured and led by me, but I’m here to support you to make your own choices and trust your judgement. We’ll make decisions about what we do in therapy together, you have choices.
Questions you might have
If you need support between sessions, or would like to read more, Beat, the UK eating disorder charity, has information and a helpline.
Your feelings are real, and that’s enough. I’m not here to diagnose you, I’m here to work with what’s happening.
Yes. Eating more regularly does not always mean that the eating disorder thoughts have gone away.
You may already have useful tools and a good understanding of what you are “supposed” to do, but still feel trapped by anxiety, guilt, body-image difficulties, rigid rules or constant thoughts about food.
We will build on the tools you already have rather than starting again. We can focus on what is still difficult, what keeps pulling you back into old patterns, and how to make life feel less dominated by food and your body.
Yes. You choose whether to be here, and you will have a say in what we focus on and the pace we work at.
We can look at what was difficult about therapy before and what made it feel unmanageable. Therapy will still feel difficult at times, but we will work through it together, taking into account what you like, what matters to you and what helps you feel able to keep going.
We will keep checking in about how the work is affecting you and adjust the approach where needed, while keeping your goals in mind.
Yes. An eating disorder may be part of what is happening, but it is not the whole picture.
We will work towards a bigger plan while staying flexible about what needs attention in each session. Some weeks that may be the eating disorder; other weeks it may be relationships, trauma, grief, neurodivergence, self-esteem or overwhelming emotions.
The focus can shift depending on what feels most important, while we still keep your goals in mind.
Starting therapy
Starting where you are right now, we will develop a way of working that feels right for you.
We will start with a no cost 25 minute initial consultation by phone, Zoom or face to face. You can contact me by email, telephone, WhatsApp or text to arrange this. During the consultation we’ll talk about what’s going on for you and I’ll explain how I work. You can then take time to decide whether you would like to work together. There’s no pressure, but I’d be happy to hear from you.