Eating Disorders

If food, eating, or your body feel like a constant source of preoccupation, stress, or worry, you're not alone — and it doesn't have to stay this way. Whether you're restricting your eating and losing weight, caught between cycles of restriction and bingeing, feeling out of control around food, avoiding certain foods or textures, or struggling with how much space these thoughts take up, support is available, and recovery is genuinely possible at any age.

What is an eating disorder?

Eating disorders aren't just about food — they're about coping. Difficult emotions, control, self-worth, anxiety, sensory sensitivities, and past experiences often sit underneath the eating behaviours themselves. This is why simply "trying harder" to eat differently rarely works on its own; the eating pattern is usually doing an important job, even when it's causing harm.

I work with young people and adults experiencing the full range of eating disorders, including:

  • Anorexia — significant restriction of food intake, often alongside an intense fear of weight gain

  • Bulimia — cycles of bingeing and compensatory behaviours such as purging, excessive exercise, or further restriction

  • Binge Eating Disorder — episodes of eating that feel out of control, often followed by shame or distress

  • ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) — significant avoidance or restriction of food not driven by shape or weight concerns, often linked to sensory sensitivities, low appetite, or fear of negative consequences (such as choking or vomiting)

  • OSFED / atypical presentations — eating disorders that don't fit neatly into one category but cause just as much distress and deserve just as much support

Common misconceptions

A lot of the people I work with have spent years doubting whether their difficulties are "serious enough" to seek help. A few things worth saying clearly:

  • You do not need to be underweight to have an eating disorder. Most people with eating disorders are not underweight.

  • Eating disorders are not about vanity — they're complex mental health conditions, often connected to anxiety, trauma, sensory processing, or a need for control.

  • Eating disorders can affect anyone at any age. I work with young people and adults of all genders, some of whom have lived with these difficulties for years, sometimes decades, before reaching out.

  • Not all eating disorders are about weight or shape — ARFID in particular can be misunderstood or missed for this reason.

  • Recovery is possible, whatever stage you're at and however long you've been struggling.

My approach

I use evidence-based, structured therapies tailored to your specific difficulties, age, and stage of readiness:

CBT-E (Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is the leading evidence-based treatment for eating disorders across diagnoses. It's practical and collaborative, helping you understand the thoughts, feelings, and patterns that maintain the eating disorder, and building new ways of relating to food and your body at a pace that works for you.

MANTRA (Maudsley Model of Anorexia Nervosa Treatment for Adults) is a specialist approach often used for anorexia, which focuses on understanding what the eating disorder does for you, strengthening motivation for change, and working with — rather than against — your own values and identity.

For ARFID and for younger people, I adapt my approach to take account of developmental stage, sensory factors, and, where appropriate, the involvement of parents or carers in treatment.

I'll always talk through which approach seems like the best fit for you or your young person, and this can shift as therapy progresses.

What happens when you get in touch

Reaching out is often the hardest part, and I want to make it as straightforward as possible.

  1. Initial contact — you send a message or email outlining a little about what's bringing you to therapy.

  2. A brief initial conversation — usually a short call, to make sure I'm the right fit for what's needed.

  3. Assessment session — a longer first session where we explore history and current difficulties in more depth, so we can agree on a way forward together.

  4. Therapy begins — regular sessions, at a pace and structure suited to the individual, with parent/carer involvement where relevant for younger clients.

There's no pressure to have it all figured out before you contact me. A diagnosis isn't needed, and neither is certainty — uncertainty is a completely normal place to start from.

If you need support right now

If you're in crisis or need urgent support, please contact your GP, NHS 111, or the Beat eating disorder helpline (0808 801 0677, beateatingdisorders.org.uk). This page and my practice offer therapy, not emergency support.