Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Self-esteem and Weight Loss

Penny Stevens Msc, Cert. Health Ed. is a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist who has worked in the NHS and in private practice for over 20 years. She runs “Diet Rescue” which provides workshops in Self-Esteem, Body Confidence and Weight Loss.  Individual consultations are also available. Below she explains how her service can enable individuals to gain a healthier and happier outcome on life.

Life can be tough.  How can we learn how to deal with the difficulties we encounter?  How can we build a healthy self-esteem?   And how can this help us to lose weight if we want to?  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can help to shed some light on this.

The philosophical basis for CBT is that it is not life events that lead to our reactions in terms of our thoughts, emotions and behaviour but our underlying beliefs about these events.  These underlying beliefs dictate how we see ourselves, the world, life, other people and the future.

The system of underlying beliefs that we hold is unique to each of us and begins to develop from day one of our lives from what we experience on a day to day basis.  Since at our early stages of life we have limited understanding and very little control in our lives, we are under the influence of those around us who thus shape our beliefs for us.  Some of those beliefs will be helpful, some not.

Our body image and self-esteem develop from these early experiences, shaped by what we learn to believe about ourselves and our position in the world, as a result of others’ influences.  It is important to understand that if these influences are unhelpful there is no fault implied – it is just the way it is – those around us in our childhood are generally doing the best they can and are in turn influenced by their underlying belief systems.

If we struggle with our body image and self-esteem CBT can offer a way forward by helping us to identify the underlying beliefs that are influencing our view of ourselves and then help us to address those beliefs by utilising our adult intelligence and insight.  Moreover it can empower us, through our adult insights, to not only improve our self-worth but also, by valuing ourselves, we can teach others to value us too.  Although (much as we may wish otherwise!) we have no real control over other adults’ behaviour, what we do have control over is how we behave towards others and this is how we can teach them – we choose what is acceptable behaviour towards us and what is not and we can then choose how we respond.  Whether they choose to alter their behaviour towards us is under their control but how we respond is under our control.

It is important to be aware of these issues when considering how we want to be and whether we believe we want to be slimmer.  Are we being influenced by others’ beliefs – including the government, medical practitioners, diet companies, the media, partners, family, friends, strangers, etc.  Are we being influenced by our underlying beliefs?  We need to ask ourselves about these issues and whether we need to consider changing our self-image and self-worth rather than our size or shape.  CBT can provide the opportunity to assess what our goal really is – whether it is about weight loss or whether weight loss is a desire that is driven by a belief that this will bring happiness or other “magical” results.

Mind and body are inextricably linked, hence the importance of developing a healthy self-affirming relationship with our bodies – having a positive self/body image – in order to care for ourselves and our bodies.  This will underpin and motivate us in any changes we decide are appropriate to make.
If weight loss is an appropriate goal – for whatever reason – CBT can help because to change our eating habits we need to change our patterns of thinking and behaving in relation to food and eating.   Eating is a behaviour which is essential for life!  But how, when and what we eat are factors that are influenced by many things. We learn our eating habits at a very early age – and sometimes we need to update or change some of these habits in order to lose weight and maintain the new weight.   CBT helps you to identify and to make those changes.

Why CBT instead of dieting?
Research has shown that up to 98% of people who try to lose weight by going on a “diet” will fail.  They may lose weight in the short term while sticking to the restrictions imposed by the diet, only to regain the weight when they stop the restrictions and often put on even more weight.  Others soon find the restrictions too difficult to maintain and “give up”. The result of this is that individuals blame themselves for “failing” and being “weak-willed” or think that for some reason they are unable to lose weight.  Referring to the many diets promoted by the multi-million pound “diet industry” Paul McKenna in his book “I Can Make You Thin” concludes: “Too many diets, too few results”.  He suggests that these kinds of diets “are no more than training courses in how to get fat and feel like a failure“.

The fact is that crash diets or any severely restrictive diets do not work for long term weight management – in fact they interfere with the body’s natural mechanisms and can cause weight gain due to muscle loss and the body’s reaction to deprivation of sufficient nutrition.  CBT has over recent years been increasingly widely recognised as a highly effective approach to successful weight loss and weight maintenance by helping us to make the changes in how we think about food and eating that enable us to move forward and leave behind unhelpful early influences.

Penny can be contacted at:
Fountains Complementary Therapy Centre in Wellingborough:
01933 442793
Or e-mail:  pennystevens@fountainsctc.co.uk
Or at Harborough Nail Academy, Manor Walk, Market Harborough:
01858 469222