Bulimia Facts - Bulimia Nervosa Treatment

Family and home therapy are probably two of the most important aspects in the treatment of bulimia nervosa. Recovery for the sufferer will happen at home, over time, and living alongside parents, siblings and other family members.

 There is a simple reason for this, it is because people under treatment with counselors only spend around 45 minutes a week on average with their therapist or doctor. For the rest of the time people live at home and recovery must take place there living amongst other family members.

 In the past few weeks there has been a mountain of scientific proof saying the best way to recovery quickly from an eating disorder is to get help from the other members of the family in a concerted effort by all concerned.

A study recently by the University of Chicago conducted by Dr. Daniel le Grange and his team, showed that family therapy is much more effective than traditional solo psychotherapy in helping young people battle with bulimia. Whereas other bulimia therapy methods where the family was not involve in the treatment process, showed a much higher failure rate in long term improvement.

People generally relapse at home after attending clinics and therapist in a matter of weeks sometimes months. And the reason for it is normally just a lack of correct family support and help. Family therapy or recovery at home must include certain things. One is attending the clinics as a family together with a sufferer. This makes the sufferer think that she/he are not alone and they do not need to lead a secret life.

This relieves the sufferer's burden enormously as it takes a lot of stress away. Secondly, it is important to be close to the sufferer to give mental and emotional support. This helps the family support her/him when they have emotional ups and downs and stops the chance of them slipping back to their bulimic habits again and again as an escape or coping mechanism for their fragile emotions.

 The third way is to educate yourself and the family about eating disorders, recognize that an eating disorder is not about food, but about the feelings and the emotions of the sufferer. This will give the family as a whole an opportunity to influence the way she/he thinks and sees themselves as a person and help them to improve their self-esteem, change their associations with food and help them find a meaning to their lives (different from what the bulimia gives to them).

 The Family should always remember that bulimics as well as binge eaters are extremely vulnerable and sensitive people. After all their bulimia is only a symptom of much deeper emotional problems. If the family goes from the point of pure love, understanding and exercises an non-judgmental approach to the sufferer, this will assure the person's recovery from bulimia and make them stay away from slipping back into their bulimia long term, even permanently in most cases. But if family does nothing, it can force the sufferer to turn away from the family where they may decide that recovery is just too hard and stay where they are in misery and pain.

This way will never do the sufferer any good or the family either. If the family is not a part of the solution, then the family is in danger of being a part of the problem. To conclude, the family is the first and most important people to help and who have a real chance to keep the bulimic on the road to recovery.


If you are a mother, a father, a sibling, a husband or a lover of a person who has bulimia; then you are in a unique position to help the person and you can provide probably the best help for the sufferer in their endeavors to recover. If you don't know how to talk to them about the problem or how to provide the best help you possibly can provide, you should start by educating yourself on how to do this.

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Learn More About Bulimia

One of the most common eating disorders within our society today is bulimia, which also known as bulimia nervosa. Bulimia is a eating disorder that is often thought of as being a disorder that is brought simply because of the desire to have a thin body, i.e. a body image problem,but few realize that it's actually a mental condition which is causing the sufferer to behave as they do.

 It's much different than anorexia nervosa, which is another common eating disorder in which individuals decrease the amount of food that they eat and undergo over-exercise or the use of laxatives in order to get their body as thin as possible. Bulimics are also concerned with getting their body weight as low as possible, but they often over-indulge in eating food before 'purging' it.

 Those with the disorder may engorge themselves with heavy amounts of food, with some bulimics consuming as much as twenty thousand calories in a meal. This is known as the 'binging' phase of bulimia, which is quickly followed by a purging phase. Individuals with bulimia 'purge' their body of the nutrition that the foods that they eat supply them with by a variety of methods, most commonly through inducing vomiting. 

Other methods of purging include the use of laxatives or diuretics, and even enemas to remove food from the body. The disorder is caused by a poor self-image in many cases, and those with bulimia are never satisfied with the appearance of their body. Even when they are at the pinnacle of low body weight, they may continue to try to lose weight, drastically damaging their body within the process.

 Those that express high levels of concern when it comes to the appearance of their body and low self esteem, with a constant fear of being seen as fat are most often afflicted with the disease. Some individuals exhibit no symptoms or signs of the disorder, but one method of identifying symptoms includes eating with the individual and noting if they go to the bathroom immediately afterwards.

 Long-term bulimics may exhibit a dental problems such as tooth decay due to stomach acids eroding the enamel of the teeth, or problems with the throat. The glands of the neck and the face may appear to be swollen and a general sense of weakness may be present.

 The problem is very common within society, with a full ten percent of college-aged girls affected by the disorder. While weight loss may occur during the disorder, the damage that it does to the body is drastic and often irreversible. Dehydration is a common side-effect, and the dental health of an individual is often drastically altered.

Stomach ulcers may develop, and after an extended period of time with the disorder, an irregular heartbeat may occur. Bulimics also face an increased occurrence of suicidal behavior. If you know an individual that you suspect may be suffering from the disease, confront them with love and compassion. Expect to be rejected, but suggest that they speak to a counselor or a doctor about the problem to see what they can do about overcoming it.

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Treatment Of Bulimia

Eating Disorders are not about food.

 ��We need to understand what a woman is saying when she uses her body to express difficult emotional issues. We need to understand why it is safer to say ��I need to go on a diet�� than ��I feel hurt or upset or in conflict�� Susie Orbach.


 Bulimia was the first eating disorder to be characterised by recurrent binge eating. The Bulimic eats abnormally large amounts of food and then experiences a loss of control. The person suffering from Bulimia engages in extreme weight-control behaviours to counteract the large intake of food. Some of these behaviours may include self-induced vomiting and/or laxative or diuretic use (purging) or severe dietary restriction and/or intense exercise.


 A second syndrome of recurrent binge eating, namely�� binge eating disorder�� differs from Bulimia in that sufferers do not regularly engage in extreme weight control behaviours. Bulimia nervosa occurs in around 1% of young western women. Intensive psychological treatments have been developed for people with Bulimia.


A manualised form of CBT for bulimia nervosa (CBT-BN) has been developed by Fairburn and colleagues (1989) In this therapy, a range of cognitive behavioural procedures are used in a specific sequence of tasks and experiments. Treatment is out-patient based and involves 15-20 sessions over about five months. There has been positive evidence from controlled studies that CBTBN is an effective approach in the treatment of bulimia nervosa, although it has also been found that for some people it is too intensive, while for others it is not sufficient.


 A graduated intervention approach to the treatment of those with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, has received empirical support from research by leading investigators in eating disorders. In this approach, the patients are offered psychoeducation or self-help therapies and then re-evaluated for further treatment as appropriate. Self-help therapy is based around a manual that includes educative material and a version of the CBT-BN manual.


 Other psychotherapies have been less frequently evaluated in the treatment of bulimia nervosa. However, there has been recent interest in interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) as alternatives to CBT.

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