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Recognizing Binge Eating Disorder
Recognizing Binge Eating Disorder outlines the ICD-11 diagnostic features to support therapists in identifying binge eating disorder in their clients.
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Overview
Binge eating disorder is a serious and often misunderstood eating disorder that involves recurrent episodes of binge eating without the use of the regular compensatory behaviours that are present in bulimia nervosa. This concise clinical summary is based on ICD-11 criteria and is designed to support mental health professionals in accurately identifying binge eating disorder. It outlines essential and additional features, distinguishing it from other eating disorders.
Recognizing Binge Eating Disorder presents the ICD-11 diagnostic criteria to help clinicians identify binge eating disorder in clients.
Why Use This Resource?
Binge eating disorder often presents without obvious physical signs and can be overlooked in clinical assessments. This resource helps clinicians:
- Identify the distinguishing features of binge eating disorder.
- Differentiate between objective and subjective binge episodes.
- Understand the importance of distress and functional impairment in diagnosis.
Key Benefits
Clarity
Defines essential and additional features using ICD-11 standards.
Differentiation
Helps distinguish binge eating disorder from bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.
Flexibility
Recognises presentations across the weight spectrum.
Who is this for?
Binge Eating Disorder
Individuals experiencing recurrent loss of control over eating without compensatory behaviours.
Subthreshold Eating Problems
Clients who binge eat frequently but do not meet all DSM/ICD criteria for other disorders.
Emotional Eating
Individuals who use food in response to guilt, shame, or distress.
Integrating it into your practice
01
Understand
Review the key features of binge eating disorder.
02
Recognize
Identify symptoms of binge eating disorder in clients.
03
Engage
Discuss whether clients identify with symptoms of bing eating disorder.
Theoretical Background & Therapist Guidance
Psychiatric diagnostic frameworks serve multiple purposes. Classification of mental disorders enables clinicians and researchers to speak a common language when describing patterns of experience and behavior, guide appropriate treatment interventions, and act as a coding system for insurance purposes. The success of these classification frameworks has varied across diagnoses but in the best cases has led to improved understanding and treatment of conditions, as well as helping many service users who find such classification valuable (Perkins et al, 2018).
Diagnostic frameworks are not without controversy. They have been criticized on grounds of reliability, validity, and distortions due to commercial interests (Zigler & Phillips, 1961; Frances & Widiger, 2012; Bell, 2017). Perhaps most importantly there are instances where they have had, and continue to have, extremely negative effects upon service users (Perkins et al, 2018). Diagnosis is not the only way of understanding people and their experiences. Many clinicians and their clients find that attending to personal stories and narratives is a helpful approach, and psychological formulation is one technique for bringing together information about what has happened to an individual and the sense that they have made of it (British Psychological Society, 2018).
Notwithstanding the above caveats, the ‘Recognizing...’ series from Psychology Tools is designed to aid clinicians in the recognition and understanding of common mental health problems.
What's inside
- Detailed description of binge eating disorder.
- Clarification of ‘objective’ versus ‘subjective’ binge episodes.
- Description of emotional responses and functional impact.
- Information on how binge eating disorder can be diagnosed in diverse body types.
FAQs
Binge eating disorder does not involve regular compensatory behaviours like vomiting or laxative use. The distress is related to the binge eating itself, not to attempts to prevent weight gain.
Yes, although binge eating disorder is often associated with weight gain, individuals may be of normal or even low weight. Diagnosis depends on the pattern and psychological impact of binge eating, not weight.
A subjective binge involves eating an amount of food that may be considered normal by others but is perceived by the individual as excessive and accompanied by a loss of control.
How This Resource Improves Clinical Outcomes
Utilizing this resource can help therapists:
- Recognize common mental health difficulties.
- Distinguish between different mental health disorders.
- Apply this knowledge to enhance case conceptualizations, treatment recommendations, and treatment plans.
References And Further Reading
- Bell, V. (2017). We need to get better at critiquing psychiatric diagnosis. Retrieved from https://mindhacks.com/2017/09/19/why-we-need-to-get-better-at-critiquing-diagnosis/
- British Psychological Society (2018). Understanding psychiatric diagnosis in adult mental health. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20180214095228/https://www1.bps.org.uk/system/files/user-files/Division%20of%20Clinical%20Psychology/public/DCP%20Diagnosis.pdf
- Frances, A. J., & Widiger, T. (2012). Psychiatric diagnosis: lessons from the DSM-IV past and cautions for the DSM-5 future. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 8, 109-130.
- Perkins, A., Ridler, J., Browes, D., Peryer, G., Notley, C., & Hackmann, C. (2018). Experiencing mental health diagnosis: a systematic review of service user, clinician, and carer perspectives across clinical settings. The Lancet Psychiatry, 5(9), 747-764.
- World Health Organization. (2019). International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11). Geneva: World Health Organization.
- Zigler, E., & Phillips, L. (1961). Psychiatric diagnosis: A critique. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), 607.
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