Mind what you eat: Brighton psychotherapist on beating overeating

If you've tried every fad diet going but can't seem to shed the pounds for good, a Sussex psychotherapist may have the answer with her holistic approach to curing emotional overeating.

Georgina Tasker lives in Brighton with her husband and two children, and has worked as a psychotherapist specialising in overeating for seven years.

She believes in mindful eating, by being more aware of what you put into your body, and savouring food, instead of treating it like a vice.

With Georgia’s courses, there’s no diets, no calorie counting, but she does attempt to get to the root of compulsive overeating through therapy and changing her clients’ relationship with food.

Georgina, who has struggled with her own eating problems in the past, explained how some people use food as an emotional crutch ‘pushing it down’ along with their problems.

“I found when I was in my twenties I went through lots of eating disorders,” Georgina says. “Anorexic, bulimic, then overeating, managing it by exercising a lot.

“I first entered into psychotherapy in my twenties. I thought ‘I am going to change my whole life’. You start to develop an awareness of what feels right in each part of your life. You are more in touch with your true self.”

It’s the combination of psychotherapy and Georgina’s holistic approach that makes the courses different to other weight loss techniques.

“In my courses and one-to-one work we are learning why we overeat and sabotage ourselves time and time again. We work with the parts of ourselves called our ‘subpersonalities’. These often unconscious parts of our psyches can often be running the show and trip us up, even when we rationally know that eating something unhealthy is not good for us.

“By getting to know these parts of ourselves and befriending them, we can begin to understand why they exist in the first place.”

Georgina’s teaching not only looks back to see where the compulsion to overeat may have emerged, but also encourages clients to be more aware of how their bodies feel when they eat certain foods, and in turn make better choices.

“People come to me because they have a problem with food and they are fed up,” Georgina says.

“A lot of people walk around and think if all this would change I would be happy, but it has to start with the self.

“It’s looking at how your body is feeling. Your body can’t lie.”

Georgina argues that by eating mindfully, people start to listen to their bodies and make more nutritious food choices.