Bit of background - I've suffered from an eating disorder for almost 20 years, alternating between bulimia and binge eating disorder (depending on whether or not I'm purging what I eat). It swings back and forth between the two on a fairly regular basis. I know this is awful for my health in itself, and I'm also pretty overweight so there's that to factor in.
I've had various types of talking therapy over the years, and none of it has really helped. I feel like they have all focused too much on the past and not enough on strategies to change my current behaviours.
I get that they want to identify the root causes of the eating disorder, but I am now at the stage where I actually don't care about the whys any more, I just want to be able to stop. I don't want to go to yet another counsellor and rake over all the same crap that I've already talked about to the point of tedium with lots of other therapists before.
That leads me to the question of whether hypnotherapy might be right for me. Can it help someone to stop behaving in a particular, unhelpful or self-destructive way without concerning itself with the reasons for that behaviour? I know people can use it to stop smoking, and I feel like the compulsion to eat inappropriate quantities of food must be a similar thing.
The reason I put in the disclaimer about phobias is that I know some people who have had hypnotherapy to get over fear of flying and vomiting (true story!) but I don't think that the psychological process would be the same. I am especially interested to hear from people who have had it for other reasons. Preferably those for whom it worked, but it would be useful too to know if anyone tried it and it was rubbish.
TIA!