Binge-Eating Disorder Treatment

Binge eating disorder (BED), a condition that involves a person rapidly and excessively eating over a period of time without purging and frequently repeating this, has various treatments. The way that medical staff can help the individual patient depends on thoroughly understanding the reasons behind the disorder developing.

The range of professionals who can help with BED vary. The disorder was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version V, which was published in 2013. In addition to a general practitioner who can help with the patient’s general health, the individual may need to seek further help from a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker or attend overeater self-help groups.

There are a number of treatment regimens that could help the patient to reduce their episodes of binge eating and lose weight. In general, psychological treatments tend to have longer lasting effects on patients in reducing BED than pharmaceuticals.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

During a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a therapist will help the patient to talk through their problems with overeating to encourage different thought patterns. The therapy focuses on how the patient’s thought processes can lead to certain negative actions which can be altered. The therapist tries to assist by encouraging the affected person to reduce their problems down into smaller elements so that they can be tackled step by step to avoid the issues seeming too daunting.

Psychotherapy

With binge eating disorder, a patient can have underlying depression or other mental health issues. Psychotherapy either on an individual or group basis is designed to help the patient explore issues that are contributing to the way they feel about themselves.

Interpersonal psychotherapy

Medical staff will help the patient to talk about and examine how their relationships with friends and family are encouraging them to binge eat. The discussions help the patient to get to the root cause of issues. The therapists are trying to inspire the patient to develop their own interactive skills in order to cope with the different challenging dynamics between people around them. This is intended to help them have coping mechanisms instead of turning to binge eating.

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