While several types of therapy can help people improve their mental health, some types work particularly well for specific disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) proves effective for challenging mental illnesses like eating disorders. Because of this, Trellis Recovery Centers includes CBT for eating disorders as part of our overall treatment plan. Our eating disorder-trained professionals use CBT to treat a diverse population of adult females. This type of therapy helps people recover from several types of eating disorders, making it a valuable tool in anyone’s recovery kit.
What is CBT for Eating Disorders?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an evidence-based type of therapy that helps people who struggle with a variety of mental health disorders. In fact, it can help conditions like depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, and addiction to drugs and alcohol. Many behavioral healthcare facilities include CBT on their menu of types of therapy modalities.
At its core, CBT addresses faulty thinking patterns and reroutes them. The individual learns the negative influence of certain habits related to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. From there, they can establish a new reliance on positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In turn, this influences the choices they make in relation to their mental health disorder or substance use disorder. As this becomes a regular habit, it empowers the person in a multitude of ways. It makes it easier to challenge any negative reactions that occur and make healthier choices.
How Does CBT Treat Eating Disorders?
Someone with an eating disorder develops a habit of relying on unhealthy and untrue thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. These come into play when they believe the negativity associated with them and use these beliefs to continue using eating disorder behaviors. These behaviors can be unlearned through the use of CBT for eating disorders.
Part of this type of CBT involves doing things like identifying all-or-nothing thinking patterns. For example, this can come into play when the individual feels they have to either restrict food all day or binge eat uncontrollably. CBT also addresses tendencies to feel self-hatred and helps the person learn to view themselves in a new light. Sessions include discussion, and roleplaying exercises, and can extend into homework assignments.
CBT helps reduce a person’s anxiety levels, which is critical for someone with an eating disorder. Many of their thoughts and behavioral choices are rooted in anxiety, making it important to reduce this emotional reaction.
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What Types of Eating Disorders Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Treat?
Several different types of eating disorders exist, making it important that approaches to help heal them fit as many types as possible. CBT for eating disorders can be highly effective for all types of eating disorders, making it a great choice when used as part of a formal treatment program. The kinds of eating disorders CBT can help include the following:
- Anorexia
- Bulimia
- Binge eating
- Rumination disorder
- Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
- Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED)
- Pica
Each person who arrives at our facility receives a full assessment to ensure they receive an accurate diagnosis of what type of eating disorder they have.
Benefits of Los Angeles CBT for Eating Disorders
When someone participates in CBT for eating disorders, they take advantage of several benefits. Many people lack the life experience to have a set of healthy coping skills in place when dealing with medical or emotional challenges. When they have an eating disorder, it becomes doubly important that they learn how to act and react from a healthy mindset. CBT teaches people to identify emotions and situations with a neutral viewpoint instead of assuming the worst. This allows them to be able to face fears that are often unfounded and feel powerful without using eating disorder behaviors.
Another benefit is that CBT can dramatically effect how the person relates to others. They learn to interpret other people’s words and actions through an unjaundiced lens. As a result, they enjoy healthier relationships and improved communication skills.
People who use CBT therapy build up self-confidence. This proves quite beneficial for not only people with eating disorders but also co-occuring mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. When one condition improves, it makes it easier to feel relief from the other ones.
Begin Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Eating Disorders in Los Angeles, CA
Trellis Recovery Centers knows how much CBT for eating disorders can make a difference in the life of a man or a woman. We include it as part of a focused approach to rebalancing a person’s relationship with food and their body image. Our transdiagnostic approach teaches patients to stay on the path to recovery.
If you would like to know more about how we can help you become yourself again, visit our admissions page now. Our friendly staff is happy to answer any questions you have.
