Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – (CBT-E)

Developed by Christopher Fairburn and his colleagues at the Centre for Research on Eating Disorders, Oxford. It is based on treating the eating disorder psychopathology rather than a specific diagnosis and there fore can be used across a range of eating disorder diagnosis. It is ideally used for treatment of adults and with people who are not significantly underweight, CBT-E generally involves twenty 50-minute treatment sessions over 20 weeks. With people who are underweight treatment needs to be longer, often involving about 40 sessions over 40 weeks. CBT-E is a highly individualised treatment focusing on the processes that are maintaining the persons psychopathology and what needs to be targeted in treatment in the four stages and therefore is unique to each client.