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Treatment for bulimia involves psychological counseling and sometimes medicines such as antidepressants. Treatment does not usually require staying in the hospital, although this is sometimes needed. Both professional counseling and antidepressant medicine can help reduce episodes of binging and purging and help you recover from bulimia. Both are long-term treatments that may require weeks or months before you notice significant results. You may need treatment with counseling and possibly medicines for more than a year.

Bulimia that occurs with another condition may take longer to treat. And you may need more than one type of treatment. If you have another condition that commonly occurs with bulimia, such as depression or substance abuse, your doctor may want to treat that condition first.

People who seek treatment for bulimia or another eating disorder may have other health problems caused by the disorder. If you have had bulimia for a long time without treatment, or if you have used substances such as laxatives, diuretics, or ipecac syrup to purge, then you may have a health problem such as dehydration that needs treatment first. In serious cases, these conditions related to bulimia may require you to spend time in the hospital.

Therapy for Bulimia

Poor body image and low self-esteem are at the core of bulimia, therefore, psychotherapy is an important part of recovery. Here’s what to expect in bulimia therapy:

Solving emotional issues:The final phase of bulimia treatment involves targeting emotional issues that caused the eating disorder in the first place. Therapy may focus on relationship issues, underlying anxiety and depression, low self-esteem, and feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Changing unhealthy thoughts and patterns:The second phase of bulimia treatment focuses on identifying and changing dysfunctional beliefs about weight, dieting, and body shape. You explore attitudes about eating, and rethink the idea that self-worth is based on weight.

Breaking the binge-and-purge cycle:The first phase of bulimia treatment focuses on stopping the vicious cycle of bingeing and purging and restoring normal eating patterns. You learn to monitor your eating habits, avoid situations that trigger binges, cope with stress in ways that don’t involve food, eat regularly to reduce food cravings, and fight the urge to purge.

The importance of deciding not to diet

Treatment for bulimia is much more likely to succeed when you stop dieting. Once you stop trying to restrict calories and follow strict dietary rules, you will no longer be overwhelmed with cravings and thoughts of foods. By eating normally, you can break the binge-and-purge cycle and still reach a healthy, attractive weight.

The first course of action should be to seek help from a physician to diagnose and treat any physical problems. To treat the symptoms of bulimia nervosa, people often benefit significantly from therapy. There are therapists who are especially experienced at helping people who have eating disorders. Therapy provides a safe, comforting, and confidential setting in which to receive the kind of help that can best determine and treat any underlying emotional and psychological causes for the disturbed eating. behavior, as well as address the effect it has had on their sense of self, their relationships with others, and their capacity to function optimally in everyday life.

There are several empirically-supported psychosocial treatments for bulimia nervosa. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which involves teaching clients to challenge automatic thoughts and engage in behavioral experiments (e.g., in session eating of “forbidden foods”) has demonstrated efficacy both with and without concurrent antidepressant medication. Researchers have also reported some positive outcomes for interpersonal psychotherapy and dialectical behavior therapy.

Maudsley Family Therapy or “Family Based Treatment” (FBT), developed at the Maudsley Hospital in London for the treatment of anorexia nervosa (AN) has been shown to have positive results for the treatment of bulimia nervosa. FBT has been shown through empirical research to be the most efficacious treatment of AN for patients under the age of eighteen and within three years of onset of illness. The studies to date using FBT to treat BN have been promising.Some researchers have also claimed positive outcomes in hypnotherapy treatment.

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