Eating Disorder Unit

The Eastbourne Clinic provides specialist help for those with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating and other related eating disorders such as 'compulsive overeating'.

“Louisa” - A Case Study by Steve Clifford, Psychotherapist

Philosophy of care:

As facing up to the problem can be extremely difficult for many sufferers, we aim to provide patients with a very safe, comfortable and nurturing environment so that they may begin to tackle the difficulties which brought them here.

Working with others who understand what they are going through, we help them overcome the primary symptoms as well as the emotional, psychological and interpersonal issues that underlie the development and maintenance of the eating disorder.

As we offer individualised treatment programmes, we are ideally placed to help those who need to stabilise or gain body weight, to interrupt binge eating, vomiting, laxative abuse, diuretic abuse, self injury, low self esteem and relationship problems.

As the disorder may often be resistant to change, our expertise in the treatment of addictions is invaluable in breaking cycles of behaviour when the individual may feel helpless, perhaps having made many previous attempts to overcome the problem.

Here at The Eastbourne Clinic we believe it is of the utmost importance to respect our patients individuality and we encourage patients to participate in treatment planning and take an active role in their own growth and recovery.

Our eating disorder team work with patients in a collaborative manner rather than impose a rigid, impersonal regime thus emphasising and reinforcing the value and healing potential of healthy interpersonal relationships.

As many of our patients live in either the local community or adjoining areas with supportive trust involvement, we actively encourage family involvement and we work closely with health professional and social service agencies to offer the very highest quality service to both service users and referring bodies.

We treat both in-patients and out-patients, sixteen years and above. In addition to this we treat children on an out-patient basis.

Our Consultant Psychiatrist, leads the eating disorder team and patients have additional daily psychiatric input by a senior psychiatrist overseeing the medical aspect of the programme. Within two hours of arriving at the clinic each patient will be seen by admitting doctor and will undergo a full admission psychiatric and medical screening. We are fortunate to have personal access to our local GP surgery where general health needs of patients are met. All patients subsequently undertake a full psychiatric medical assessment within twenty four hours. Treatment for medical emergencies would be sought at EDGH.

Multi Disciplinary Team:

Our team comprises both mental health and general trained nurses who have specific experience in the care of patients with eating disorders. We have access to expert dietician services as required and our in house psychotherapy team provide individual and group therapy. We utilise a wide variety of psychotherapeutic models including integrative psycho-dynamic , brief solution focused therapy and cognitive behavioural psychotherapy, for which the most evidence for efficacy currently exists. We have our own therapy centre where patients undertake psycho-educational and psychosocial therapy. (this may also be accessed on a daily basis and forms part of our aftercare facility.) In- patients with eating disorders reside in separate accommodation from other clinic patients and enjoy individual bedrooms (some en-suite), a shared kitchen and a comfortable and relaxed lounge area.