The Radically Open DBT Workbook for Eating Disorders: From Overcontrol and Loneliness to Recovery and Connection

by Karyn D. Hall, Ellen Astrachan-Fletcher, Mima Simić

A groundbreaking workbook to help you develop healthy coping strategies, build a solid support network, and stay on the path to recovery.

If you’ve been in therapy for an eating disorder, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia, your past treatment may have focused on helping you control your emotions and contain your behaviors. However, research now shows that many people with eating disorders actually suffer from emotional overcontrol. Based on more than twenty years of research, this breakthrough workbook offers skills based in radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT), a proven-effective, transdiagnostic approach for treating disorders of overcontrol (OC).

With this compassionate workbook, you’ll learn how to move beyond the unhealthy coping strategies that keep you feeling isolated and lonely, find tips for building a solid support network and enriching social connections, and develop your own personalized plan for staying on the path to recovery. You’ll also find assessments to help you determine the root cause of your OC disorder, exercises for increasing social engagement, and skills for improving social flexibility, trust, and intimacy.

Having an eating disorder can make you feel like you’re alone in the world. Even if you’re in recovery, you may have days when feelings of isolation are too much, and you may feel tempted to fall back into unhealthy patterns of eating or restrictive eating. This workbook will help you build your own “treatment tribe,” a group of people that help lift you up and support you as you find your way to a full recovery and a rich, meaningful life.

Genres: Psychology, Self Help, Nonfiction

344 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2022

Reviews

[Eada Gendelman]

Will definitely use parts of this book with clients, but hard for me to picture myself actually recommending the whole workbook

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

RO-DBT For ED

This is a dbt skills book based for people with eating disorders to expand skills in better functioning with their life. It is easy to follow and it was good to read . The exercises were easy to follow and clear to not leave so much guess work. Plenty of handouts over different skills with easy examples related to things someone with an eating disorder might be going through as they recover.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this workbook, that it could give practical tools for the many overcontrol clients I see. Though there were a few nuggets, the worksheets and tools felt clunky and impractical. Also, I got annoyed with the tone. I think the authors were going for relatable, but it came off as sappy and condescending Not likely to use much more than a page or two at work.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ton of really helpful strategies for anyone who struggles with over-control.

Interventions to refer back to:
- Behavioural Experiment for Perfectionism
- Safety Cues & Food Activity
- RO DBT Model of Emotional States
- Tracking Valued Goals Sheet

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful resource for ED patients. The description of the 'over controlled' personality style did feel like a personal attack however

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok I am not even past the Forward yet but just reading the definition of maladaptive over control (OC) coping and the couple of bios, all I can think is... THIS IS ME. My inability to socialize, my quirkiness and feeling "different " from a very young age, my perfectionist and ritualistic tendencies, inability to show emotions.. it all perfectly describes me.

I will update this review once I finish the workbook but I can already tell I will be learning quite a lot from it that years in inpatient/outpatient treatment and therapy never revealed to me.

[Victoria Coria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give it 10 stars if I could. Even thought it won't cure your ED, this book is an enormous tool for dealing with it. After almost 9 years of failed therapy and dietitians, none of which I felt had empathized with me, this book hit the nail. Not only helped me tremendously with my ED but also made me a FAR better person.
I recommend it to anyone with a past or present restrictive ED, be it anorexia, orthorexia, or bulimia. Nevertheless I don't think it would be useful for BED or other less common eating disorders like ARFID.