Cognitive behavioural therapy with SEDATT

This resource is about cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with the Sheffield eating disorder assessment and treatment team (SEDATT).

What is CBT?

CBT is a talking therapy that can help yo identify how your thinking affects how you feel and how you behave. It is an evidenced based therapy for eating disorders.

It is a way of talking about:

• how you feel about yourself, the world and other people
• how what you do affects your thoughts and feelings
• it focuses on the here and now problems and difficulties

Instead of focusing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.

What are the benefits?

CBT changes how you think (cognitive) and what you do (behaviour).

You discover ways in which you think, traps you fall into, and how to challenge yourself.

CBT is one of the most effective treatments for eating disorders.

CBT is a collaborative therapy.

What kinds of things can I expect?

You will have a session with a therapist around once per week, for 60 minutes. Usually you will have between 5 to 20 sessions.

You get to decide with your therapist what you goals will be.

You will work with your therapist to break problems down into separate parts, such as thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions.

You may be asked to keep a diary. This will help identify your individual patterns of thought, emotions, bodily feelings and actions.

It is easy to talk about doing something, and much harder to actually do it. After what has been identified to change, your therapist will recommend ‘homework’ to you to start making changes in your everyday life.

What happens now?

You will be invited for an appointment and an initial assessment. You and your therapist will discuss yous needs and goals for getting better, and how you might work towards them.