Recovery from Disordered Eating: Sufferers’ and Clinicians’ Perspectives

Disagreement exists on how to define recovery from eating disorders. Definitions typically include a combination of physical, cognitive, emotional, psychological and social factors. However, none provides multidimensional recovery models, addressing and comparing sufferers’¹ and clinicians’ viewpoints. This study investigates those recovery perspectives.

Two-hundred and thirty-eight participants (individuals with eating difficulties and clinicians working in the field) completed a checklist, rating the importance of somatic, psychological, emotional, social, eating-related and body experience-related recovery criteria.

Recovery criteria fell into meaningful factors (psychological–emotional–social, weight-controlling behaviours, non-life-threatening and life-threatening features and evaluation of one’s own appearance). Sufferers and clinicians agreed on the ranking of importance of these factors. However, sufferers considered ‘psychological–emotional–social’ and ‘evaluation of one’s own appearance’ criteria as more important to recovery than clinicians.

Findings are discussed in relation to existing research, together with study limitations and future research. Clinical implications are outlined, focusing on the facilitation of recovery. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.