5 Personality Traits for Eating Disorder Clients to Development

When therapists treat clients who regularly diet and overeat, it’s easy to get sucked into talking about their experiences with food for an entire session. As an eating disorders therapist for 30-plus years and fully recovered from binge-eating, chronic dieting and bulimia for half a lifetime, I can tell you that there’s nothing most dysregulated eaters would rather talk about than their eating, even as they’re struggling not to make food the centerpiece of their lives. Therefore, it falls to clinicians to draw clients into territory that to them might seem far afield from their food struggles.

Personality traits is one of those territories. Most of our eating disorder clients are so used to the way they act and think that they don’t consider how their personality traits benefit or hinder them. Our job is to help them recognize how specific traits misdirect them around food and how to modify these traits (add some, delete others, strike a better balance) to support “normal” eating.

There are five personality traits of dysregulated eaters that stand out as barriers to their having a positive relationship with food and their bodies. It’s no wonder they have eating problems; reliance on these traits is the exact opposite of what would aid them in becoming comfortable around food.

1.All or nothing thinking and feeling Many overeaters embrace an all-or-nothing mindset. Actions are either right or wrong, feelings and people are either good or bad, with little room for nuance or gradation. For example, if they stray from their diet, they believe the whole day is blown in terms of healthier eating and so they cease to care about what foods they put into their mouths.

2.Full of judgment about their mistakes Although they’re often forgiving of others, because they can be obsessed about doing things right, they’re very hard on themselves. They push themselves to be accountable and responsible—except when they’re saying the heck with it and “being bad” with food—and berate themselves when they don’t do what they think they should do.

3.Perfectionistic If they take on a task, they’re driven to do it to the nth degree, even if it’s minor or inconsequential. They believe it’s wrong to leave jobs half done (or worse, undone!) or to do them in a mediocre fashion, and the higher the stakes, the stronger perfectionism grows. They relieve their stressing about not being perfect by eating.

4.People-pleasing and approval-seeking They worry about what others think of them more than what they think of themselves, yearning for acceptance and praise. Little makes them happier than compliments about their healthy eating or weight loss and little makes them more miserable than what others might think of their eating or size.

5.Insufficient pleasure, joy and play Because they worry so much about doing well and pleasing others, they don’t seek enough pleasure, joy and playtime for optimal well-being. They often view relaxing as slacking off and pleasure as something they’ll enjoy down the road. In truth, rather than needing more mindfulness in their lives, they could do with more mindlessness.

Our job as clinicians is to teach clients that their all-ornothing mindset is a hindrance to growth and to point out when we see them feeling or thinking in black-and-white, not simply around food, but in relationships, work, daily life and self-appraisal. We can help them replace judgment with curiosity about their mistakes and failures and show them how to have self-compassion, accountability and responsibility in equal measure.

We can explain their perfectionism as being intertwined with their harsh self-judgment and encourage them to be kinder to themselves and decide when enough is enough, not only in the food arena, but in all aspects of life. Therapists can support clients in developing a stable sense of self which relies on internal rather external appraisal and focuses on clients’ wants and needs rather than on how others view them.

One of the most important jobs we have with dysregulated eaters is to help them learn to let go without food. Teaching them the value of play validates their very real human need for it and encourages them to build a life that finds joy and pleasure everywhere, not simply on the scale or in the refrigerator.

Written By: Karen R. Koenig, LCSWKaren R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., is an eating psychology expert with more than three decades of teaching people how to become “normal” eaters. Recovered from dysregulated eating for half-a-lifetime, she uses her clinical expertise and personal experiences to help clients improve their relationship with food and their bodies. She’s also an 8-book international, award-winning author and a popular blogger. Practicing out of Sarasota, Florida, she can be found online at www.karenrkoenig.com.