NZ Eating Disorder Specialists

There has been an increasing movement over the last few years of patients and families taking more control of their own health. (more…)

Change is difficult for everybody. Trying to change long term behavioural patterns, such as eating disorders, can seem impossible. The Two Week Challenge can help. (more…)

Happy New Year! Caroline and I hope each of you have had a good holiday and feel well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the year ahead.

This is the inauguration of a weekly blog in which we will deal with topical issues, messages, feedback and questions that we receive through this website.
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The anorexia nervosa/compulsive overeating worksheet is a tool for tracking conflicts and the influence that they have on eating disorder behaviours. Stress frequently occurs within relationships with people that we are close to including our family and romantic partners. To keep ourselves and these relationships healthy, it is crucial to respond to the conflicts as soon as we can. (more…)

Jane, a young woman with increasingly out of control bulimia, consulted with me. She had been staying with an Aunt who felt that as her guardian, it was her responsibility to give her niece advice in all areas of her life. (more…)

Greetings,

Thank you again for becoming a member on our website. As a member, we would like your input and feedback about what is, and what is not, working for you. If you have any questions about eating disorders or treatments, or more general queries please feel free to ask. Also, please feel free to comment on the tools found on this website such as the compulsive overeating/bulimia nervosa worksheet. Your feedback is helpful for us to improve this service for yourself and for other members.
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For the last couple of weeks I have been in Mexico doing workshops. One of the workshops that I presented was on Eating Disorders. During this workshop, a woman (Mercedes*) from the audience came to be and said that she would like to present her family to the workshop participants. I tried to dissuade her for confidentiality concerns, but she persisted saying that she felt it would be helpful for herself and to the other members of her family.
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As you read this website, we hope that there are certain ideas that jump out at you.

Most importantly, we hope that the idea of being the master or mistress of your own life, and addressing issues as they emerge, strikes you, and grabs you. It can be difficult to have a clear perspective on our own lives at times, and it can be difficult to make a stand when things are not the way we wish them to be.
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Employing an over-used metaphor from the famous movie, another perfect storm occurs in eating disorders.

No one can deny the cultural “value” in Western culture for women to be thin and have the “perfect body”. As I have said many times on this website, there is more to the development of eating disorders than just cultural values. (more…)

There is a profound relationship between people feeling good about themselves and their being able to control their eating disorder. If the relationships in your life are making you feel bad, the eating disorder is exacerbated. When there are irritations in our lives, in terms of relationships, our ideas about our physical body change and the desire to lose weight, one way or the other, emerges. (more…)