Eating Disorders and Attachment: Understanding What Keeps Someone Safe

£FREE

What happens when the behaviour causing someone harm also feels like the thing that helps them cope?

For a therapist, an eating disorder may raise immediate concerns. For the person experiencing it, it may also offer predictability, emotional protection or a sense of companionship. Understanding that relationship can open up a more compassionate conversation about change.

In this Optima Insights discussion, Georgina joins Dr Joanna Silver, a psychologist specialising in eating disorders, to explore the meaning beneath eating difficulties and the importance of relational safety.

They discuss how trust develops, what groups and loved ones can contribute, and why someone’s appearance tells us so little about their distress. They also explore a situation many practitioners may recognise: noticing possible eating difficulties when the client has come to therapy to talk about something else.

How do you raise your concerns? How do you recognise the limits of your competence? And how can you consider additional support while remaining attentive to the therapeutic relationship?

Whether you work directly with eating difficulties or support people whose lives are touched by them, this conversation offers plenty to reflect on.

Watch the conversation and download the accompanying reflection pack to explore what the learning could mean for your practice.