By Catherine Geary, Eating Disorder Therapist | Psychodynamic Therapy | Anti-Diet
💬 What If Recovery Didn’t Mean Fighting Your Body?
When most people think of eating disorder recovery, they imagine food plans, calorie tracking, and rigid goals. But for many, those methods only reinforce the very patterns they’re trying to heal — shame, control, perfectionism, and fear.
There’s another way.
Incorporating an Anti-diet approach into therapy offers a radically compassionate approach: one that centers your lived experience, honors your emotional world, and helps you rebuild trust with your body — not control it.
And thanks to online therapy, this work is more accessible than ever.
🧠 What Is Anti-Diet Therapy?
The anti-diet approach rejects the toxic belief that smaller bodies are better bodies. It recognizes that eating disorders don’t arise in a vacuum — they grow in systems that moralize food, stigmatize fatness, and reward disconnection from self.
Anti-diet therapy is not about “letting go” of health — it’s about letting go of shame.
Instead of focusing on what you eat, we explore:
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Why you relate to food the way you do
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How body image became tied to self-worth
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What emotional needs went unmet — and how the eating disorder tried to meet them
📍 How Online Therapy Supports This Process
Therapy delivered online makes recovery accessible, consistent, and deeply personal. Whether you’re navigating bingeing, restriction, chronic dieting, or body image distress — you don’t have to do it alone.
In online therapy, we can:
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Unpack the emotional roots of your food struggles
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Explore the relational dynamics that shaped your self-image
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Work through shame, perfectionism, and people-pleasing
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Create safety in your body, without rigid food rules
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Build a more compassionate internal voice
You show up from the comfort of your own space. No commute, no waiting rooms. Just honest, gentle work — face to face, screen to screen.
💔 Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short
Many treatment models are weight-centric, behavior-focused, and surface-level. They often ignore the emotional function of the eating disorder — the way it protects, communicates, and regulates.
A purely behavioral approach might say:
“Just eat more,” or “Just stop bingeing.”
But anti-diet, psychodynamic therapy asks:
“What is this behavior protecting you from?”
“What deeper need is going unmet?”
“What’s the story beneath the surface?”
This is where true healing begins.
🌿 What Recovery Can Really Look Like
It’s not always linear.
It’s not about achieving food freedom in 10 steps.
It’s about slowly — gently — coming home to yourself.
In anti-diet therapy, recovery means:
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Eating without fear or guilt
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Feeling emotions without needing to numb them
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Making peace with your body as it is — not as you were told it should be
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Reclaiming your right to take up space
💻 Ready to Begin?
If you’re tired of battling your body and you’re looking for a deeper, more compassionate path to recovery, online therapy might be right for you.
You don’t need to be “sick enough” to deserve help.
You don’t need to “get it together” before reaching out.
You just need to start — and I’m here to walk with you.
📩 Book a free consultation now to learn more about how we can work together.
Click the ‘free consultation’ box at the top right hand corner of the page or visit the contact form here: https://foodfreedomtherapy.co.uk/contact/
