Eating Disorders and Mindfulness

Exploring Alternative Approaches to Treatment

This book presents an overview of the latest psychological knowledge about the application of mindfulness-based interventions in the field of eating disorders. Increasingly, these interventions are used in therapeutic practice. They encourage clients to process their experience fully, as it arises, without judgement. Mindfulness-based approaches, in particular, emphasize the cultivation of moment to moment awareness of thoughts and feelings as well as bodily sensations. In so doing, eating disorders present an ideal context for the development of mindfulness. Indeed, it is in the body that the emotional and relational struggles of clients reveal themselves.

The authors in this diverse volume share a belief in the utility of using mindfulness-based practices to address disordered eating. It features up to date research and theory regarding mindfulness and the full spectrum of eating disorders, from Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa to Binge Eating Disorder. In addition, it explores how professionals can utilize mindfulness in their own practices, in the context of both individual and group treatment.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Eating Disorders: the Journal of Treatment and Prevention.