ARFID Treatment
Get ARFID treatment at Mona’s clinic
in Islington, London or online
Eating Disorders
Selective Eating Disorder (SED)
ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) Mona Hansen is one of the UK’s few psychologists who specialise in treating ARFID. She offers a unique integrated therapy approach to treatment for ARFID from her private practice in London.
ARFID, formerly known as SED (selective eating disorder), is a form of food phobia that can affect people of any age. Mona is a highly-trained specialist in food phobia therapy and brings relief from selective eating disorders in adults and children alike.
Whether you’re nearby in London, want to travel from elsewhere in the UK or abroad or prefer ARFID treatment via Skype, Mona Hansen offers the perfect solution. Mona is a private therapist with a proven record of treating ARFID in adults and children.
What is ARFID?
ARFID stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder and used to be known as SED (selective eating disorder). It’s a form of food phobia that means a person can’t eat, touch or smell certain foods without experiencing distress, anxiety or even physical illness. It is not the same as ‘picky eating’.
While picky eating can be overcome by willpower, ARFID is a food phobia and a form of selective eating disorder. This means the problem has much deeper roots and requires some form of therapy treatment to be resolved.
Food avoidance and food phobia can be based on the texture, smell, taste, appearance or even presentation of food. If you suffer from ARFID, your system has associated certain foods with feelings of being unsafe or in danger. It then designates these foods themselves as unsafe, treating contact with them as if it were a matter of life and death. Your brain has gone into ‘survival mode’ and will try to avoid these foods at all costs – no matter how illogical or frustrating it feels.
Symptoms of ARFID (SED)
You could be suffering from ARFID. This is treatable and you don’t have to put up with it anymore.
Suffering from ARFID is difficult; it can feel frustrating, infuriating, and sometimes, embarrassing. ARFID is not the same as ‘fussy eating’, which friends and family members sometimes find difficult to understand. It can leave you feeling embarrassed when eating with other people, or even avoiding eating in front of people at all.
ARFID is an inability to overcome the mental barriers that prevent you from touching, smelling, or eating certain foods – no matter how much you might want to overcome them yourself.
ARFID treatment breaks down those barriers and allows you to process your thoughts and feelings. It frees you from these constraints, allowing you to approach food differently. It opens up new experiences and makes food enjoyable again.
An ARFID Specialist can help you if you experience…
- Intense anxiety or dread at the thought of tasting, touching, or smelling certain foods
- Fear of gagging or retching if you consume certain foods
- Inability to try out new food
Treatment For ARFID
Mona is a psychologist with extensive training in and experience of treating eating disorders including ARFID and a wide range of specialist qualifications in therapeutic approaches including clinical hypnotherapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).
A single session will allow Mona to address the root cause of the problem through an integrative therapeutic approach and/or hypnotherapy. Once enabled, you will be able to reconfigure the emotions associated with certain foods.
This integrative ARFID therapy approach provides effective results that work fast. No matter the severity of the problem, it usually takes just one two-hour session to treat ARFID. Although Mona treats ARFID successfully with a single session, bear in mind that there will usually be work to be carried out at home to maintain progress which Mona will explain both during and after the session. On rare occasions, some might benefit from a top-up session at a later date, but generally, one session will be sufficient.
As well as working with adults, Mona has years of experience with treating children of a wide age range. Her caring nature and professional qualifications come together to bring effective and long-lasting ARFID treatment.
Food Phobia Treatment
Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder or ARFID is a phobia associated with foods; rather than animals, objects, or processes. It should not be confused with ‘fussy eating’, a behaviour commonly observed during a conservative phase of a child’s development. Fussy eaters are often merely picky or play on the preferential treatment or the special attention they get, but they are not phobic.
What Causes ARFID?
ARFID or SED can occur due to an event or phase in one’s past. The ‘pain’ resulting from the occurrence is often associated with certain foods. As a result, psychological mechanisms are usually invoked to protect us from harm and will operate to ensure we avoid them. The longer this situation persists, the more the avoidance behaviour will be established. Sometimes a belief that harm will result from eating these foods becomes strongly justified in the mind. Fortunately, effective and rapid help is at hand.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) – the main guide for the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders – first recognised ARFID as a specific diagnosis in 2013. According to the DSM-5, food restriction in ARFID may be due to high sensitivity to sensory aspects of food (such as texture, colour, or temperature); a lack of interest in food or eating; or anxiety around food. This can include a fear of aversive consequences (i.e., choking or vomiting) associated with eating. These three presentations are not mutually exclusive, and an individual can present with one, two, or even all three.
Treatments for Eating Disorders
Your eating disorder treatment will help significantly improve your eating disorder symptoms. By participating in our sessions you will see improvements such as:
- Developing a healthy relationship with food
- Feeling in balance and at peace with yourself
- Higher motivation and improved activity levels
- Weight stabilisation and its consequent health benefits
ARFID Treatment for Adults
People often think of selective eating disorder being something that largely affects children, but this isn’t true. Traumatic or significant events can happen at any time in our lives which affect our approach to food and eating. Adults can suffer from ARFID just as children can. It is a disorder that often starts in childhood and lingers on into adulthood unless effective help is sought. Mona Hansen offers effective treatment for ARFID using multiple methods including clinical hypnotherapy and CBT treatment bringing relief from the oppressive constraints of food phobias while addressing the underlying causes.
Mona Hansen effectively treats ARFID in adults and children to bring relief from the oppressive constraints of food phobias.
ARFID Treatment for Children
Mona also has experience treating ARFID and selective eating disorders in children of a range of ages. Mona can offer treatment to children from six years old and up. Simply get in touch to discuss your needs or to make a booking today.
What is Involved in ARFID Treatment?
Mona also has experience treating ARFID in children of a wide range of ages. Mona can offer treatment to children from six years old and up. Simply get in touch to discuss your needs or to make a booking today.
ARFID Hypnotherapy
Mona’s ARFID treatment adopts an integrated approach. This combines cognitive behavioural therapy, clinical hypnotherapy, and other forms of psychological treatments according to each individual’s needs. Mona’s individually customised ARFID treatments have a successful track record for both adults and children.
ARFID Treatment in Person or Online
Mona has numerous testimonials from sessions with adults, teenagers, and younger children. She can also conduct in English or Norwegian, also running a Facebook forum for SED/ARFID in Norway.
Mona Hansen has a private practice clinic in Islington North London in the UK. If you prefer, Mona offers Skype sessions to those who find it more difficult to travel, or simply prefer to have treatment for ARFID at home.
Get In Touch Find out how Mona can help you overcome your eating disorder and book an appointment today.
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