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The role of professional help in eating disorder recovery should not be discounted. Disordered eating behaviors do not simply go away on their own and often get worse with time, leading to any number of physical, mental, and emotional health concerns.
But in some cases, it's possible to address these conditions on your own, utilizing eating disorder therapy techniques designed for self-help.
Self-help therapy is almost exactly what it sounds like—a form of treatment that helps you learn how to work toward eating disorder recovery on your own. This can include:
Often, all three of these aspects are called for to some degree.
Some of the most popular forms of self-help therapy are programs that walk patients through a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) cycle. Aside from being one of the most tested and effective methods for reducing eating disorder behaviors, CBT is designed around a series of pre-set modules, making it easy for someone to follow along on their own, as opposed to working with a mental health professional.
Still, there are many types of self-help therapy and strategies for changing one’s lifestyle to help support long-term recovery. Mindful or intuitive eating, keeping a food log, journaling, attending support groups, and working with affirmations are just a few ways to encourage healing at home.
In many cases, self-help therapy is practiced by following a self-help workbook, app, or other type of program.
You can also treat eating disorders with self-help by adopting or practicing changes at home that work to strengthen mental health. Different strategies can be used to help promote acceptance, support boundaries, and build self-esteem.
Clearing your home environment of potential triggers and having conversations with loved ones about sensitive topics to avoid are other good ways to practice self-help therapy. Attending support groups can help you stay accountable for these changes and stay on the path toward recovery.
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One of the most frequently used types of self-help is called guided self-help. Using this type of therapy, you'll work primarily through an eating disorders help guide, workbook, or online program.
While pure self-help is primarily aimed at how to overcome an eating disorder on your own, with no outside counsel, there are a few variations on this idea, including:
Another way to practice self-help therapy is to practice therapeutic techniques at home. These techniques can be techniques you’ve learned previously in therapy or read about outside of your self-help program.
Instituting foundational changes to your lifestyle and home environment to support long-term recovery is a key aspect of self-help, regardless of your chosen program.
You can expect to put in a decent amount of work when following a guided self-help program. Essentially, these programs help you become your own therapist, so there's a lot to learn about different eating disorder therapy techniques and approaches.
Some self-help books include additional "homework assignments" or projects to help you practice and develop new skills and overcome old unhealthy patterns. But it’s also okay to question whether you’re doing something right.
Some self-help programs involve occasional check-ins with other people to help assuage any of these concerns and give you ongoing accountability. This could mean seeing a mental health professional or an eating disorder self-help group.
Self-help is about persistence, consistency, and showing up for yourself. Practicing different therapy techniques at home can be a challenge, especially on days when you feel low-energy, stressed out, or triggered. This is why it’s equally important to make healthy changes to your home environment and lifestyle and continue practicing learned strategies at home and around your loved ones.
Therapy is not a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. Self-help may be helpful in some cases but not others, depending on your medical history, the severity of your symptoms, and other factors.
One of the most obvious benefits of self-help therapy is accessibility. The method is easily and widely available and can be used when more traditional therapy is too expensive or hard to come by.
Guided self-help, in particular, can be a great way to learn new skills and coping mechanisms, which can help heal eating disorders and maintain a greater sense of balance and peace overall.
Learning self-help eating disorder therapy techniques can be a good way to prepare for other more intensive forms of therapy should self-help prove unsuccessful or not enough to maintain eating disorder recovery.
Self-treatment is only recommended for mild or moderate cases of disordered eating behaviors. That’s mostly due to the immense amount of self-discipline the technique involves. Even the strongest person can feel tired or have enough “off” days to persuade them to quit. And a person who’s struggling badly may have trouble even finding the energy to start a new routine.
Similarly, a big part of healing from an eating disorder on your own is having the right outlook, and self-help can only be as perceptive as the person practicing it. Though the aim is to learn how to better identify and manage problematic thoughts and behaviors, it can be easy for a person to fall back on patterns of denial or get lost in their own view, making them fail to see an issue.
Pure self-help therapy is especially prone to this pitfall, which is why many forms of this method incorporate or encourage occasional check-ins with therapists or participation in groups. This can help someone going through self-treatment put their thoughts and behaviors in context or develop accountability for their recovery progress.
Self-guided CBT has been found to help stop binge eating behaviors and other disordered eating patterns for people with bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED), which are among the most common eating disorders in the United States. Still, results are less clear when it comes to anorexia nervosa (AN).3
That may be connected to the fact that CBT, overall, is not considered any more effective at treating AN than other types of therapy.5 Since many self-guided therapy programs are modeled off of CBT, this could play a role in the muddled results.
Overcoming anorexia nervosa on your own can be a particularly tricky and dangerous undertaking. In these cases, more specific or additional techniques may be needed for the recovery process, or you may need professional help.
Self-help therapy is an elusive term. Many forms of self-help, including lifestyle changes and at-home therapy practice, are difficult, if not impossible, to track scientifically. For those reasons and more, most research on self-help therapy has been focused on CBT-based self-help.
Still, the method has had promising results, being found at least partially effective in many cases, particularly when treating BN and BED.10
One of the most recent studies, testing an enhanced version of CBT-based self-guided therapy, found that it was successful at nearly eliminating binge eating behaviors in just four weeks, with as many as 40% of the participants who completed the study showing full recovery by the end of the program.9
Still, like all forms of therapy, eating disorder self-treatment is not a perfect or infallible solution. The benefits and limitations of the therapy should be considered before starting a program. If you continue struggling with disordered thoughts and behaviors after several weeks of self-help, it may be time to seek out professional care.
At Within Health, we provide different levels of eating disorder care, and self-help elements are a core part of our program.
Options like our reflective opportunities sessions will allow you to develop self-reflection and perspective. Writing or artistic prompts and other experiential opportunities are used to help you get in touch with these insights.
Other aspects of our program can be followed exclusively through our app. All of our unique treatment regimen is offered online, allowing you to participate in your eating disorder recovery journey from the comfort of your own home.
A clinical care team will be assigned to you based on your specific needs, and together, you'll work to find the best treatment process for you. Call our admissions team today to learn more about our virtual care program for eating disorders.
Disclaimer about "overeating": Within Health hesitatingly uses the word "overeating" because it is the term currently associated with this condition in society, however, we believe it inherently overlooks the various psychological aspects of this condition which are often interconnected with internalized diet culture, and a restrictive mindset about food. For the remainder of this piece, we will therefore be putting "overeating" in quotations to recognize that the diagnosis itself pathologizes behavior that is potentially hardwired and adaptive to a restrictive mindset.
Disclaimer about weight loss drugs: Within does not endorse the use of any weight loss drug or behavior and seeks to provide education on the insidious nature of diet culture. We understand the complex nature of disordered eating and eating disorders and strongly encourage anyone engaging in these behaviors to reach out for help as soon as possible. No statement should be taken as healthcare advice. All healthcare decisions should be made with your individual healthcare provider.
