I'm Dr Emma Gray, and I'm the Lead Clinical Psychologist at the British CBT & Counselling
Service. And in this video, I'm going to talk about
the best treatments for eating disorders. Let's start with medication. Now, no biological
origin has been identified for an eating disorder which makes developing a medication almost
impossible. But let's look at what we do know. Let's start with anorexia nervosa. So the
main symptom of this eating disorder is a very low weight. Now, basically, here, no
medication is effective. There's some very limited evidence that some medications can
help with weight gain—but it's really limited. Some medications can help with the problems
that go alongside anorexia nervosa—so, for example, things like depression and OCD. Antidepressants
can help with those symptoms, but there's nothing really that helps with the weight
gain. In terms of binge eating disorder—so this
is where people are consuming large amounts of food in a very frantic way. Some antidepressants,
in particular, an SSRI, can be helpful to reduce the frequency and intensity of bingeing,
and also appetite suppressants have been found be helpful.
Finally, bulimia nervosa—so this is where you're both bingeing and purging. With this
eating disorder, Prozac has been found to help with binges—and the likely impact here
is probably due to the fact that it makes people feel better in themselves—so it lifts
their mood and you don't feel like bingeing and purging as much if you feel happier. But
it's not having a direct impact on your eating pattern.
The problem with all medications for mental health problems is that they don't address
the cause of the mental health problem—so when you stop taking them, your symptoms are
going to return. This leaves us with talking therapies, and currently, the most effective
talking therapy is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy—or CBT.
In the next video, I'm going to look in some more detail at what CBT for an eating disorder
involves—but I'll give you a brief overview here.
There are two components to this treatment. The first one focuses on helping the sufferer
develop a regular, healthy, balanced pattern of eating—and this will go some way to starting
to reduce symptoms. And this component may involve some input from a dietitian.
The second component looks at the cause of the eating disorder. So the psychological
origins of an eating disorder are much clearer than the biological origins—and in my last
video, I talked a little bit about this. An eating disorder is really a coping strategy
for life; it helps the sufferer deal with the uncomfortable emotions that are triggered
by difficult events and also by low self-esteem. So this component looks at helping the sufferer
develop healthier ways of coping with their emotions and ways of improving their self-esteem.
In terms of my recommendations, it would always be CBT. Occasionally, if you are struggling
to engage with your CBT, if your mood is really, really low, or your symptoms are so bad that
you simply can't make it to your sessions—I might suggest, then, a short course of medication.
But I would never recommend medication without therapy.
Now as I've said, in the next video, I'm going to look in a little bit more detail at CBT
for an eating disorder. Hopefully, I've managed to answer all your questions about what the
best treatment for an eating disorder is, but if not, please post them in the comments
below, and I will do my best to help you. In the meantime, on this channel, I talk a
lot about mental health problems, emotional problems, psychological problems, behavioural
problems, and the ways that we can help to deal with those. So if that is something that
you're interested in, please subscribe. And I will see you soon.