Information for patients: What happens during cognitive behaviour therapy for bulimia

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7411.382

BMJ 2003;327:382 (16 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7411.382

Commentary

Information for patients: What happens during cognitive behaviour therapy for bulimia

Alison Tonks, freelance medical editor¹

¹ BMJ Unified, London WC1H 9JR atonks@bmj.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Cognitive behaviour therapy is a kind of psychotherapy. Sometimesit's just called therapy. During cognitive behaviour therapyyou talk to a trained therapist about your problems. Most peoplewith bulimia see a therapist regularly for about 20 weeks,but you can see a therapist for longer if you need to. Eachmeeting with the therapist usually lasts about an hour. Your therapist could be a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a psychiatricnurse, a psychotherapist, or even a family doctor.

Three phases of therapy

Cognitive behaviour therapy for bulimia is often split intothree phases.

Phase one
You start by learning to reduce bingeing and dieting. This takesabout seven to nine weeks. Usually, you keep a diary of howoften you eat and how often you binge, purge, or exercise.You might also write down your thoughts about food in yourdiary.

The first phase is all about allowing yourself to eat. For example,if you never . . . [Full text of this article]

Phase two
Phase three