Personal recovery in eating disorder support
“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.” – Masaru Emoto
When people with lived experiences are asked what recovery truly means to them, symptom change is only part of the story. This matters in how we approach therapy, especially when most eating disorder treatment models are heavily focused on only assessing certain symptoms over time.
A systematic review by Wetzler and colleagues (2020), drawing on 20 studies of lived experience across a range of eating disorders, identified six components that people consistently describe as central to their recovery:
Supportive relationships: feeling heard, understood, and connected, rather than isolated in the illness
Hope: believing recovery is possible, even when the path isn't linear
Identity: separating who they are from the eating disorder, and rebuilding a sense of self that isn't organised around it
Meaning and purpose: finding reasons to engage with life beyond managing the illness
Empowerment: regaining a sense of agency, control, and self-direction
Self-compassion: learning to relate to themselves with kindness instead of relentless criticism
A separate meta-analysis by de Vos and colleagues (2017), looking specifically at people who considered themselves recovered, found much the same picture. Positive relationships, self-acceptance, personal growth, and autonomy showed up as strongly as symptom remission itself, and sometimes, even more. Eating and body-related change mattered in both reviews, but people tended to describe it as only one part of the picture.
Personal recovery goals matter
This shapes a big part of how I structure therapy and treatment with my clients.
If someone tells me their goal is to stop dreading family dinners, the therapy plan will look different from someone whose goal is to trust their own judgment again, or someone who wants to stop feeling like a stranger in their own body. Whilst the eating disorder might look similar on the surface, the recovery that matters to each of them won't be identical.
Revisiting this regularly means treatment stays anchored to you.
A holistic approach to evidence-based support
CBT-E remains one of the most researched approaches for adults living with eating disorders in Australia and internationally. It does excellent work with the behavioural and cognitive patterns that keep an eating disorder running, such as rules, checking, and black-and-white thinking about food and body. However, behaviour change alone often doesn't touch what's underneath. This might include old relational wounds, a nervous system that learned to associate safety with control, or a body that's been treated as the enemy for years.
That's where I tend to bring in EMDR and sensorimotor approaches. EMDR helps process experiences that became tangled up in how someone learned to feel safe or worthy. Sensorimotor work brings the body itself into the process, because eating disorders live in the body as much as the mind, and a person can understand their patterns intellectually while their body is still bracing for threat. Used together with CBT-E, these approaches let treatment address the eating disorder's hold on behaviour, on the nervous system, and on someone's sense of self.
This is also why I hold a trauma-informed, weight-inclusive frame throughout. Eating disorders often develop downstream of complex trauma, dissociation, or ruptures in early relationships. Treating the eating patterns in isolation tends to leave the deeper work undone.
A focus on strengths
People bring resourcefulness, insight, and courage into this work, often more than they give themselves credit for. The fact that someone has survived an eating disorder already tells you something about their capacity to endure and adapt. Treatment works best when it draws on that.
That means you are always the expert of your own experience. As a psychologist, my role might be to bring clinical knowledge, structure, and guidance on best approaches to treatment. You bring the knowledge of what already works for you and what your life needs for you to thrive.
Recovery doesn't have one shape
Recovery is possible for all people living with eating disorders, and it looks different for everyone. Some people will feel fully free of their eating disorder. Others will describe themselves as always "in recovery," managing some pull from it while still living the life they want. The point of treatment is to support the recovery process and the goals that are authentically yours.
References
de Vos, J. A., LaMarre, A., Radstaak, M., Bijkerk, C. A., Bohlmeijer, E. T., & Westerhof, G. J. (2017). Identifying fundamental criteria for eating disorder recovery: a systematic review and qualitative meta-analysis. Journal of eating disorders, 5(1), 34.
Wetzler, S., Hackmann, C., Peryer, G., Clayman, K., Friedman, D., Saffran, K., ... & Pike, K. M. (2020). A framework to conceptualize personal recovery from eating disorders: A systematic review and qualitative meta‐synthesis of perspectives from individuals with lived experience. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 53(8), 1188-1203.
I'm Maejoy Obach, a Clinical Psychologist and Accredited EMDR Practitioner. My work is grounded in kapwa - the belief that healing happens in connection, not in isolation. I offer trauma informed, relational therapy in Coffs Harbour and via telehealth across Australia, including EMDR Intensives for people wanting more focused, concentrated work. If anything here resonates, I'd love to hear from you.
