Compassion the key to eating disorder care in Coventry
A Coventry eating disorder expert is leading the way with developing a successful new approach to treating eating disorders in the city.
Dr Ken Goss is Lead Psychologist for the specialist eating disorder service provided by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust.
His service sees patients from Coventry who need treatment for eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. Last year, around 150 Coventry people were referred to the service.
He and his service has pioneered the development of ‘compassion-focussed therapy for eating disorders’ (CFT-E), an approach achieving impressive results where it is practiced around the world.
The therapy offers a 24 session group treatment program for adults. It was developed from Compassion Focused Therapy, a treatment designed by Professor Paul Gilbert (OBE) to help people with complex mental health problems who struggle with feelings of shame and who are highly self-critical. These problems often make it difficult for patients to use other evidence-based treatments.
In CFT-E, people are seen as doing the best they can to manage complex social and interpersonal worlds, with emotional systems, behavioural response, and cognitive abilities that are not really fit for the job!
CFT-E argues we need to take a ‘not our fault’ approach to managing these problems, otherwise individuals are likely to become ashamed or highly self-critical of their attempts at coping; which can further undermine attempts to seek-help or to develop new, more adaptive ways of coping.
This means eating disordered behaviours are seen things a person uses to manage difficult situations, painful emotions and memories, or to get a sense of achievement and control. This therapy helps patients manage the thoughts and feelings that they have around eating/size/shape and the problems that patients with an eating disorders have with shame and self-criticism.
Dr Goss and his team have already published a number of articles and books about the approach. Last year, Dr Goss’s expertise took him across the UK and to the USA and Norway. This year he is working on a number of projects, including working with colleagues in Norway on the first treatment randomised clinical trial of CFT-E for inpatients with an eating disorder, and a multi-site clinical audit of CFT-E with several services in the UK.
And later this year, the service will publish the first study using of an adapted form of the treatment for people with Anorexia Nervosa.
Dr Goss explained: “This innovative approach is delivering impressive results for people with experiencing eating disorders and adds to the treatments that can successfully help people with an eating disorder to recover.”