How to Find the Right Binge Eating Therapist for Your Needs: 5 Ways to Get Help for Binge Eating
Finding a decent therapist is hard. Finding the right binge eating therapist in California or Texas is even more difficult. It’s partly because many eating disorder therapists don’t have much experience and training in binge eating disorder. Also, many individuals struggling with binge eating are in larger bodies, and they face judgment, stereotyping, oppression, and accessibility issues on a daily basis. Most therapists are unaware of such issues. If you grapple with binge eating, you’ve likely tried a lot of coaches, physicians, dietitians, and perhaps even eating disorder therapists who just haven’t clicked. You’ve felt misunderstood, invalidated, minimized, and ridiculed. Finding an experienced, compassionate binge eating therapist who knows the complexities of binge eating disorder is key. Here are five ways on how to do it.
#1: Find an experienced binge eating therapist (at least 5 years!)
I know, I know, all eating disorder therapists need to start somewhere. It just doesn’t have to be with you. I worked with a couple of inexperienced eating disorder therapists in Texas and Colorado, and I found that they just weren’t trained and equipped enough to help me recover from binge eating. Google “binge eating therapist” and check out their websites to make sure they have frequently referenced binge eating. When you schedule a consultation call, ask them how many years of experience they have had treating binge eating. Anything less than five? I’d move on to someone else. I’d also inquire what percentage of their client load is made up of people with binge eating. Mine is about 30%, and it doesn’t include my binge eating coaching clients. Anything less than 15%, I’d go elsewhere.
#2: Inquire what therapy models they use to stop binge eating
Often folks with eating disorders don’t know what to ask during that first connect call with a potential eating disorder therapist.
Here are some questions you can ask a binge eating therapist in California, Texas, and elsewhere:
(a) What therapy models do you use to help people recover from binge eating?
(b) What training have you received in these models?
(c) How successful are these models in your practice?
I use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and family systems therapy. Researchers have shown that CBT, DBT, and family systems therapy are very effective with eating disorder treatment. CBT and DBT are especially helpful for binge eating disorder.
#3: Ask about accessibility
Many people—not all, but many—who struggle with binge eating are in larger bodies. That means that accessibility is an issue that binge eating therapists in San Diego, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Antonio, and in other cities and towns must address. Accessibility for fat folks in therapy offices largely has to do with seating and door width. When you speak with binge eating therapists in DC, Texas, and California, ask the following questions:
(a) How wide are the doors? Do they accommodate people in larger bodies?
(b) What are the chairs in the waiting room like? Do you have chairs without arms? Do you have reinforced chairs to accommodate individuals with a higher body weight?
(c) What seating do you have for clients in the therapy rooms? Are they sofas, loveseats, or individual chairs? Are the sofas too low or too deep so that larger-bodied people would struggle getting out of them? Do the individual chairs have arms? Do you have reinforced, armless chairs available?
#4: Make sure that they are an anti-diet binge eating therapist
“Anti-diet” means that the San Diego binge eating therapist (or binge eating therapist in any city) is not a weight-loss therapist. A binge eating therapist with an anti-diet stance acknowledges that diets do not work and can indeed be harmful to individuals’ physical and mental health. I have heard stories of folks who have gone to eating disorder therapists who claim to have expertise in “binge eating,” when in reality the clinicians hold anti-fat biases and encourage clients to diet and lose weight. I’m always APPALLED at these stories, as it is completely unethical to treat clients who want to recover from binge eating by prescribing food restriction. The primary reason is because food restriction leads to binge eating!
#5: Determine whether they include body liberation
Body liberation is an important concept that binge eating therapists teach their clients. By using the philosophies of body liberation, binge eating therapists can help people learn how to reduce their internalized anti-fat biases (as well as anti-fat bias they have against others—totally no judgment here; I had those biases when I began binge eating therapy as a client, many moons ago). Body liberation has to do with taking a stance against systemic oppression of bodies that don’t meet the thin, white “ideal” body type. It’s vital to address it in binge eating therapy because racism is at the root of anti-fat bias (Read Dr. Sabrina Strings’ and Sonya Renee Tayolor’s books for more).
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Disclaimers for My Work in Body Image, Binge Eating, and My Virtual Online Binge Eating Program
*DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM is online binge-eating education and private virtual group support via a Facebook Group. The aim of this course is to help people reduce and eliminate any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. DR. MARIANNE-LAND’S BINGE EATING RECOVERY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.
**The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is virtual binge eating education and LIVE virtual coaching support. The goal of this program is to help people stop any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.