EMDR Psychotherapy & Emotional Eating //

Overweight

Emotional conditional overeating - “eating with emotions”

Many people find it difficult to manage their relationship with food, eating and their weight and many find that their quality of life suffers from the constant pressure of being healthy and slim. It is often difficult for them to make the right choice in their busy and often stressful lives.

There are many good reasons why it is difficult to manage their weight e.g. bad habits, lack of knowledge, genetical and neurobiological factors, cultural and social conditions etc.

Diet and exercise; dieting and physical exercise are the typical responses to these challenges other people also assume that weight control is about the necessary self-control and discipline.

Latest WHO figures show that neither the knowledge nor action in relation to diet and exercise have had the desired effect and today there are more individual who die from the consequences of too much food rather than too little, and we are on the brink of an obesity epidemic.

Research shows that the emotional component, ie. The appropriate regulation of emotions play a crucial role in weight loss and appetite control.

Food is often used as a protective strategy to soothe the unpleasant feelings that are otherwise difficult to handle. The emotional challenges are hereby temporarily satisfied although not for very long.

Eating typical sweet or fatty food products provides a short-term satisfying feeling because along with other reasons there is an activation of the same structures in the brain which are being activated during a good and safe social contact.

The emotional-related overeating is a very understandable strategy since food from early childhood is one of the natural ways we have been comforted. The challenge, however, is that over eating can result in an unhealthy weight  gainand a debilitating psychological and physical dependence.

There are a number of reasons why it is so difficult to change these conditions.

First, we need to relate to food, hunger and satiety many times each day and we can not remove the need, as we can for example in our relation to smoking,. We have to find an appropriate satisfaction of our needs for survival.

Secondly the emotional starvation can be so strong and can be such a frightening experience that one dare not confront it and therefore, without noticing what we need or how much, we just quickly and effectively soothe the feeling with food.

The overwhelming emotions can be due to untreated traumatic experiences earlier in life, and we know that 40% of the group of overweight people has been exposed to either physical or psychological harm in their past. Of course it can also be about bad habits and specific current situations that trigger the need for overeating.

No matter what the underlying reasons for the individual’s overeating and food addiction, there is a need to develop a better ability to integrate, endure, regulate and transform the disturbed emotions.

The handling of overeating and food addiction has become increasingly necessary to enable us to deal with the many challenges in our modern society involving stress, life and work related changes etc.

We offer individual sessions where you have the opportunity to work with your particular past regarding food, weight and eating habits, emotional dilemmas and challenges. We help you to get more control of those situations where your impulse control is challenged and create a general improvement in regulating your emotions and hence the ability to better make reasonable and appropriate choices.

Our treatment is aimed at the growing group of people, who most often, are functioning in other aspects of life, but are using food inappropriately as a strategy in emotionally stressful situations in their everyday life.

If you have a diagnosed eating disorder or are suffering from other serious diseases, we recommend you get medical assistance.