Here at CBT Professionals, we offer nutritional counselling services through our Dietitian.
Who is the service suitable for?
Our Dietitian provides eating behaviour counselling to support clients with concerns in regard to their eating, body image or weight. This includes both adolescents and adults who have:
- A suspected or diagnosed Eating Disorder including Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge-Eating Disorder or OSFED
- Disordered Eating, Chronic Dieting and Emotional Eating
- Chronic lifestyle-related health issues
- Body Image concerns that they would like to address through mindful self-care.
What is involved?
At your initial one-hour session, our Dietitian will meet with you to gain an overview of your food, eating and / or body image concerns and related health issues. The Dietitian will explore with you what matters to you about improving your health and what you would like to achieve in your Dietetic sessions. This information will steer how treatment sessions are designed. It is also likely you will discuss matters concerning:
- Your social life/situation as it relates to food and eating
- Relevant medical and mental health history
- Weight and dieting history
- Usual food and drink intake
- Establishing other members of a multi-disciplinary treatment team, eg. a GP and a Psychologist, where relevant.
(If a treatment team is necessary for your health care, a plan will be discussed with you as a member of that team, that best addresses your needs and takes into account your budget).
Follow-up sessions are either 30min or 1hr in duration. Review sessions will involve completing ongoing assessments, reviewing relevant medical issues, reviewing your progress with your eating goals and developing collaborative plans for your next steps forwards.
What are typical issues focused on with the Dietitian?
The matters you discuss with your Dietitian will vary widely from person to person. The list below provides some broad ideas about typical goals clients at CBT Professionals work on with their Dietitian:
- Improve regularity and adequacy of your eating
- Increasing the variety of your diet
- Increasing flexibility and spontaneity in eating situations, including social eating occasions
- Increase enjoyment of your food and meal times
- Developing Intuitive Eating skills
- Mindful self-care approaches to improving body image.
Throughout this process, our Dietitian will utilise evidence-based best practice behavioural change techniques such as Motivational Interviewing, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) as well as working from a Health At Every Size® Paradigm. Our Dietitian also has experience in utilising Health Coaching techniques to help you to establish healthy, sustainable habits. If you are unsure where to start, our Dietitian will guide you with supportive conversations about your best ways forward. Being a passionate advocate of the size diversity and acceptance movement, please note that our Dietitian does not provide weight loss services.
What is covered in a 1hr review session vs. a 30minute review?
A 30-minute review session includes quick check-in regarding progress and medical issues and brief discussion of 1 main area for change. Typically 30-minute sessions are for maintenance eating behaviour counselling, rather than early in treatment.
1hr review sessions include the above as well as more time for collaborative planning and working together to come up with an approach that will work for you, including discussion of:
- engaging support to achieve your objectives
- contingency planning (and prevention)
- how you will celebrate and acknowledge success and progress.
Why choose CBT Professionals?
All of our practitioners are selected based on a uniting set of values that define us as a truly caring practice. We stand against the practice of generic treatments and know that every case is unique and needs our best care and attention to craft a treatment approach specific to your situation.
Our dietitian is Master’s Degree qualified and has extensive practice experience in working with people concerned about their weight, shape, and eating practices. Petrina offers a warm and compassionate service that is professional and confidential, helping to support you to work on this very sensitive and personal topic.
What will it cost me?
If eating disorders are not met with intervention, at worst case they can become life threatening. It is not safe to assume that they will remit with time, in fact it is often the opposite. With time, eating behaviours and disorders can become entrenched. Behaviours can intensify and escalate from extreme dieting and restriction to bingeing and purging, laxative abuse, excessive exercise and more. Depression and anxiety are frequently seen in the eating disordered client. In addition to the psychological difficulties, there are a number of negative physical impacts of having an eating disorder. Getting help is an important step on the road to a better quality of life and freedom from the hold of an eating disorder.
To find out more about our fee structure you can look at our Fees page of our website linked here.
Initial sessions are 1hour in duration (50 minutes for session and 10 minutes for preparation and notes) and review sessions are either 1hr or 30min in duration.
How do I get started?
The first step is to speak to your GP about a referral to our service to see our Dietitian. If you have an Eating Diosrder, you may qualify for an Eating Disorders Treatment and Management Plan, which will provide rebates for 20 dietetics sessions in a calendar year. However, a referral is not necessary and you can see a Dietitian privately. When you are ready, please phone and speak to one of our friendly reception team and request to make a booking with the Dietitian.
We look forward to being of assistance.