Christopher Fairburn, who has optimized cognitive behavioral therapy for eating disorders, mentions the feeling fat as one of the perpetuating factors of eating disorders, including binge eating disorder. in his famous book[Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eating Disorders] he wrote: It is our view that in patients with eating disorders feeling fat is often the result of the mislabeling of certain emotions and bodily experiences.
Last night, I had a therapy session with the patient who I had visited in the first session with the initial complaint of body dissatisfaction and episodes of overeating.
In the same session, I found that the mood switching between the patient’s emotions is very high. With a more detailed history, I found a history of mood disorders in the first and second degree family. With the diagnosis of binge eating disorder + other specified mood disorder, I prescribed a mood stabilizer for the patient, which caused a great improvement in the patient’s mood swings in a few weeks. As a result, the feeling fat decreased and along with behavioral therapy emphasizing regular food eating, the initial symptoms of the patient decreased to an acceptable level. This experience showed me that managing the feeling fat is an important in the treatment of eating disorders.