Understanding Compulsive Eating

by Judy Lightstone, MFT

Binge eating disorder, or BED follows predictable patterns. Compulsive overeating patterns can be understood by following the diet/binge cycles described below on this page. You may stay in one cycle or mover repetitively back and forth between the two, alternating periods of compulsive overeating with periods of compulsive restriction, or you may never restrict, although the wish to do so is part of what drives the bingeing. Whichever pattern you follow, understanding the triggers to your eating and being able to slow down the binges are the key to breaking the cycles.

Let’s start by defining compulsive eating as any eating out of relation to physiological hunger and satiation. This means that anytime one eats for reasons other than hunger or bringing hunger to satiation, we say that eating was compulsive in nature. Which is to say we all eat compulsively at times (i.e. for reasons other than physiological hunger).

People with eating problems, however, eat compulsively consistently and feel terrible shame about both the behavior and the effects of the behavior (perceived or real) on their body size. In fact, each compulsive eating episode tends to be accompanied by a great deal of shame, as shown in the cycles below. Indeed it could be said that shame is the main ingredient that turns a "normal" experience of compulsive eating into a repetitive anguished pattern.

Individual Therapy for Eating Problems:

In my work with people with eating disorders, I listen to them carefully as they describe their eating in detail to me. Below is the common pattern I have distilled from underneath the many stories I have heard. When you come in for your first appointment, you may have a lot to say, or you may be so nervous that you don't know what say. Trust is a key issue, and you may feel afraid to trust or you may want to dive right in. Either way, we will both come to understand that trust is not a static thing - it comes and it goes, and generally has to be earned to be meaningful. While we are exploring these complexities, it's often a relief to start talking. We begin by helping you explore your personal experiences with food, feeding, fat, and body size, and why these issues are so painful for you.

Techniques for Working on Eating Problems:

You may have been put on diets or diet pills, forced to eat when you weren't hungry, weighed and lectured by well meaning (or not so well meaning?) doctors or relatives, or felt otherwise disrespected and intruded upon. I will not be weighing you or telling you what or what not to eat. This may feel like a relief, or you may not like that. Some people become dependent on others to tell them what to eat. I will simply be encouraging you to sense your hunger and satiation points, and to notice when you can follow them as guides, and when it seems too difficult.

We may choose to include journal, art, or movement work, and guided fantasies to help you express what the eating problem has been trying to say. Ultimately, you will learn to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. But in the meantime, when you cannot always do this, we will use the symptoms to point us to the triggers and issues in your life that you have been using bingeing, and/or dieting to solve. We work these through one by one, until you feel strong enough to face these difficulties without depriving or punishing yourself with food.

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