Recovery from an eating disorder is possible, providing you access treatment and stick with it.

Depending on the type and stage of illness, treatment requires a multi-pronged approach addressing nutritional, physical and psychological issues and a range of health professionals may need to be involved – including a general practitioner (GP), a mental health practitioner, a dietitian, a psychiatrist, a physician/paediatrician.

For most children and younger adolescents, evidence supports the use of a family therapy approach. For older teens and adults, the approach depends on the eating disorder symptoms and impacts, and other individual factors and life experiences.

Prior to your first appointment, there are number of forms and questionnaires for you to fill out which Peta will email you. Please bring them completed to the first appointment.

Your first two appointments will be focused on a thorough assessment of where things are up to in relation to the eating disorder and together we will make a plan to move towards recovery. The first assessment session is usually up to 90 minutes.Sessions thereafter will be up to 60 minutes long. Some of this time will be used for Peta to develop a written summary of the assessment and treatment plan for your GP and/or whoever has referred you.

You will be asked to monitor your dietary intake using the Recovery Record app (which you will download from the app store), which Peta will talk to you about and help you to download at the first appointment. Monitoring your dietary intake gives us really important information and helps us to see patterns and opportunities to make changes – this is an important part of treatment, even though it can be daunting.

The duration of treatment is different for everyone and depends on lots of different factors. Recovering from an eating disorder is difficult and challenging – probably one of the most (if not the most) challenging thing you will ever do. However, recovery is always possible and the sooner you get stuck in to it, the better.