Beating Eating Disorders Step by Step: A Self-Help Guide for Recovery

Anna Paterson

Jan 2008 · Jessica Kingsley Publishers

About this ebook

People living with eating disorders find it hard to take the step of choosing recovery, often because the disorder has developed as a way of `coping' with problems or stresses in the their life. This book outlines new and positive ways of dealing with eating disorders for people living with eating disorders and their families.

A practical workbook written by someone who has lived with eating disorder, it provides advice and strategies to aid understanding and to help the reader to gain control of their illness. Anna Paterson leads the reader through easy-to-use therapeutic exercises, such as describing the pros and cons of an illness, writing a farewell letter to it, and using role-reversal scenarios to get a new perspective on their attitude to eating. She emphasizes the importance of taking things at your own pace and in the final section of the book provides a set of diet plans specifically designed for anorexics, bulimics and compulsive overeaters.

This book will be valued by people living with eating disorders and their families, and also the psychologists and psychotherapists, counsellors, health professionals and social workers who work with them.

About the author

Anna Paterson lived for 14 years with chronic anorexia. Since her recovery she has published a number of books on eating disorders, including Running on Empty, winner of the Times NASEN 2002 Children's Book Award, and Diet of Despair, which was given a special commendation in the Times NASEN 2002 Non-Fiction category. She participated in a 2001 BBC documentary entitled `Quietly Dying' and has featured in B Magazine, the Daily Express, the Independent, the Times Educational Supplement, Women's Own and You magazine. She is a frequent speaker on eating disorders and volunteers as an eating disorders helpline operator. Anna lives in London.