Other types of psychotherapy

Do they work?

Several types of psychotherapy are used to treat bulimia. Some look promising, but much more research is needed to say how well they work or which ones work best.

What are they?

Psychotherapies come in many different forms. All of them involve sessions where you talk to a therapist. Your therapist could be a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse, a psychotherapist, or even a GP.[3] [2]

Psychotherapies change the way you think or the things you do, or they help you learn something helpful. Some therapies, like cognitive behaviour therapy, do all three. Other therapies, like interpersonal therapy, help you with the way you relate to other people.

Psychotherapy aims to improve or stop the symptoms of bulimia by helping you think about how you feel and behave. You understand your thoughts and feelings by talking about them with a trained therapist. You can see your therapist every day, every week or every two weeks. You'll probably have therapy for a few months, but you can have it for longer. Thirteen sessions is about average.[5]

Below is a list of the therapies sometimes offered to people who have bulimia. You can find out more about the treatments by clicking on the links.

• Cognitive orientation
• Dialectical behaviour therapy
• Exposure response therapy
• Hypnobehavioural therapy
• Interpersonal therapy
• Motivational enhancement therapy

How can they help?

If you use one of these psychotherapies, it can help change your behaviour. For example, you might:

• Stop binge eating, at least for a while[6] [4] [1] [7]
• Eat more regular meals[1]
• Vomit or take laxatives less often.[4]

We don't know whether any one of the different psychotherapies is better than all the others. Cognitive behaviour therapy is the type most often used to treat bulimia, though studies haven't shown for sure that it is the best of the various therapies. We do know that cognitive behaviour therapy is better for people who have depression as well as bulimia.

Why should they work?

Most psychotherapies aim to do more than just reduce the symptoms of bulimia. These methods help you explore why you have problems with food and they try to deal with the causes too.

We don't know exactly what causes bulimia. But experts realise that people with bulimia have lots of psychological worries along with physical symptoms like binge eating. Experts have developed treatments to tackle these worries.

Can they be harmful?

There's no evidence that psychotherapy is harmful. But some people have said that going to group therapy sessions soon after being diagnosed with bulimia can feel threatening.[1]

To find out more about the ways bulimia is treated, see How bulimia is treated.

What's the evidence for other types of psychotherapy?