Support Group for Disordered Eating

Group Type: Therapy Group

Who Is The Group for?

• Anyone Struggling with Disordered Eating Patterns
• For people who notice patterns like restricting, bingeing, guilt after eating, emotional eating, or over-control around food - with or without a diagnosis.
• Those Feeling Stuck in Food-Body Cycles
• If your relationship with food or your body feels like it takes too much space in your life and head, this space is for you.
• Individuals Seeking Awareness and Support, Not Judgment
• For those who want to understand why they eat or restrict the way they do - and talk about it safely with others who get it.
• People Ready to Explore Balance and Self-Kindness
• If you’re looking for small, practical ways to move toward peace with food and your body, this group offers tools, reflection, and shared support.

Glimpse of the Session:

Session 1: Understanding Your Food Story

• Introductions and establishing group norms for emotional safety
• Exploring early messages, rules, and experiences around food
• Understanding how food can represent comfort, control, connection, or coping
• Beginning to notice emotional states linked to eating patterns
• Activity:
  • Body mapping exercise: identifying where emotions show up in the body
  • Writing your “food story” growing up — memories, rules, and feelings around food
  • Reflecting on the food environment of your childhood home and what it may have meant
• Skills:
  • CBT: Identifying black-and-white thinking around food
  • DBT: STOP skill for pausing during urges
  • ACT: Noticing thoughts about food without immediately reacting
• Homework:
  • ACT: Reflect on personal values around nourishment and permission with food
  • Awareness practice: Notice food-related thoughts with curiosity during the week

Session 2: Body Image and Self-Perception

• Shift from body shame to body neutrality
• Explore body criticism through body checking/rules about body/eating
• Distress tolerance skills
• “Feelings are not Facts”
• Activity:
  • Inner critic exploration through metaphor (e.g., comparing the voice to a character or villain)
  • Thought diffusion exercise: noticing the voice of the inner critic and stepping back from it.
• Skills:
  • CBT: Thought challenging and fact checking
  • ACT: Cognitive defusion
  • DBT: Distress tolerance tools such as TIPP or grounding strategies
• Homework:
  • Optional mirror exposure exercise (30 seconds)
  • Alternative practice: trying a new or previously avoided meal while using a grounding or distress tolerance skill

Session 3: Emotional Eating and Nourishment

• Exploring the relationship between emotions and eating behaviours
• Understanding emotional eating and identifying triggers
• Expanding the meaning of nourishment beyond food
• Activity:
  • “Baby Animal” reflection exercise: exploring care, vulnerability, and nourishment through metaphor
  • Group reflection on self-care, emotional needs, and compassion
• Skills:
  • CBT: ABC model for identifying triggers
  • ACT: Willingness and urge awareness
  • DBT: Radical acceptance and opposite action
  • ACCEPTS for emotional regulation
• Homework:
  • Acts of kindness toward self (record privately during the week)
  • Create small coping cards, a value deck, or a personal reminder collage
  • Journal prompt: If disordered eating wasn’t controlling your life, what might life look like?

Session 4: Relapse Prevention

• Reflecting on the group experience and key insights gained
• Identifying future triggers that may impact nourishment and eating patterns
• Understanding the difference between lapse and relapse
• Activity:
  • Writing a goodbye letter to the eating disorder — acknowledging what it once provided and why change is needed
  • Identifying personal warning signs and potential triggers
  • Group discussion on strategies for coping and seeking support
• Skills:
  • CBT: Safety planning and trigger mapping
  • ACT: Self-empathy and values-based action
  • DBT: WiseMind
  • Mindfulness practices
  • Riding the wave of urges
• Homework:
  • Optional continued use of DBT skill worksheets and personal coping tools developed during the group.