Many clinicians who work in the field of eating disorders have lived experience of an eating disorder themselves. Estimates vary, with studies suggesting that from 20% to 50% of eating disorder clinicians report such lived experience (Bachner-Melman et al., 2020). Given the stigma that still surrounds eating disorders, even within healthcare settings, the actual number may well be higher still.
Many clinicians remain silent about their personal histories of struggles, fearing professional judgement, concerns about credibility, uncertainty around disclosure boundaries, or simply navigating the ongoing debate about whether lived experience should be shared and discussed publicly by health professionals at all.
This stands in interesting contrast to some other areas of mental health and addiction treatment. Just recently, I came across a job advertisement for a residential alcohol and drug service where lived experience was listed as a required quality in applicants. In eating disorder spaces, however, personal disclosure by clinicians often remains more complex and cautious.
But the reality is that many people are drawn towards working in the field of eating disorders for deeply personal reasons, and there can be some potential benefits to having lived experience of this kind.
The Potential Benefits of Lived Experience
Experiential understanding
For some clinicians, lived experience may contribute to a particular kind of attunement or experiential understanding (Warren et al., 2013).This can be the difference between intellectually understanding why someone cannot simply “just eat” and having some embodied understanding of how frightening, complicated, and emotionally loaded the disorder and recovery can feel. Intimate knowledge of the eating disorder “voice” can be similar to being fluent in a foreign language. There can be an immediacy to recognising how the eating disorder voice would most likely ‘respond’ in any given situation.
Of course, lived experience alone is not the sole ingredient that makes someone effective at working with others in distress. Compassion, insight, boundary management, self-awareness, effective training, and reflective practice all matter enormously. And in clinical roles, effective treatment requires specialised training, ethical practice, supervision, and evidence-based knowledge and tools.
At the same time, many exceptional eating disorder clinicians do not themselves have personal lived experience of an eating disorder. Many have other lived experiences that they draw from, to meaningful effect. Empathy, attunement, curiosity, and clinical skill are not exclusive to any one background. I myself have worked alongside deeply compassionate professionals whose understanding of eating disorders comes not from personal history, but from years of careful listening, learning, advocacy, and dedication to their clients.
Recovery can feel more imaginable
Research on therapist recovery disclosure suggests that, for some clients at least, knowing their therapist has recovered from an eating disorder can help one’s own recovery feel more believable and attainable (Wasil, Venturo-Conerly, Shingleton & Weisz, 2019). This is important, with an illness so often characterised by feelings of hopelessness and ambivalence. Recovered clinicians can personally and emphatically speak to a belief in recovery being possible and worthwhile to pursue because they have experienced it themselves.Therapeutic connection and collaboration
Some clients report feeling less shame when they know their therapist has lived experience of an eating disorder. Research more broadly suggests lived experience can help reduce power imbalances, foster collaboration, and support a sense of being understood (World Health Organisation, 2025; Haywood et al, 2023).Treatment for eating disorders can sometimes feel frighteningly exposing or disempowering. Anything that helps a person feel safer and more connected in the therapy room is particularly significant.
Advocacy and reducing stigma
Lived experience can also shape the way clinicians think about eating disorders. Clinicians with personal lived experience may be less likely to hold stigmatising or oversimplified assumptions about eating disorders, particularly in non-specialised settings where these illnesses are still often misunderstood.
One qualitative study found that having a personal history of an eating disorder helped clinicians maintain humility and guard against an “us versus them” perspective; a meaningful therapeutic stance to hold (Williams & Haverkamp, 2015).
On this topic, the growing inclusion of peer support workers within multidisciplinary teams is an incredibly positive development for the field. Their presence in meetings where clinical discussions are held helps centre lived reality alongside clinical knowledge and may continue encouraging more compassionate, person-centred approaches to care.
Considerations & Cautions
Lived experience is not without complexity, however, and it is important to name areas for insight and self-awareness.
Disclosure requires care
Many clinicians and researchers support therapist self-disclosure “when appropriate”. In Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (a model of treatment), therapist self-disclosure is understood as a core component of reciprocal communication. The therapist discloses ways in which he or she has utilised the principles or skills of the treatment to solve a problem in his or her own life (Swales, 2009).
Self-disclosure should always serve the client’s needs rather than the clinician’s. Too much or inappropriate disclosure can unintentionally shift focus away from the client, blur boundaries, or invite comparisons that are ultimately unhelpful.
Decisions about whether, when, and how much to share require thoughtful reflection, good supervision, and a clear therapeutic rationale (Bachner-Melman et al., 2020).
Lived experience is not a treatment blueprint.
What worked in one person’s recovery reflects just one individual story, shaped by a particular body, personality, history, culture, and set of life circumstances. Eating disorders are enormously complex and varied, and good treatment can never be built around assumptions like “this worked for me, so it will work for you.”
Effective therapy requires an individualised understanding of what is keeping the eating disorder going for this particular person, at this particular point in their life. The clinician’s own history should never dominate that process. What matters most is careful formulation, evidence-based practice, collaboration, and keeping the client’s voice at the centre of understanding and treatment. Recovery is deeply personal, and there is no single “right” way to get there.
Ongoing recovery and self-awareness
Clinicians with lived experience are best placed to practise safely and effectively when they are in solid recovery, engaged in ongoing professional supervision in their work, and committed to reflective practice. This kind of work can activate deeply personal material and requires ongoing awareness and support.
One thing I occasionally hear people wonder is whether working with eating disorders would be “too triggering” for someone with a personal experience history. I can only speak for myself, but interestingly, I have never experienced client work in that way. If anything, my work in this field has strengthened my recovery. Being constantly reminded of the genuine pain and isolation eating disorders cause has reinforced why recovery matters. Spending years immersed in evidence-based literature has helped me continue challenging harmful societal narratives around weight, food, and worth. And being surrounded by thoughtful, anti-diet colleagues who care deeply about people and not body sizes has probably been for me one of the most protective influences imaginable. In many ways, eating disorder thoughts lose their power when your daily life is filled with conversations about flexibility, nourishment, meaning, connection, compassion, and living a fuller life.
That doesn’t mean recovered clinicians experience total immunity to societal pressures, beauty standards, and doubts about self-worth. Recovered clinicians are still human beings moving through this culture, and old eating disorder thoughts may arise during times of vulnerability. What matters most is not never having difficult thoughts again; it is recognising them for what they are, responding differently, and continuing to build a life grounded in values, meaning, and connection rather than body image and control of food.
What this Means for You as a Client
If you are seeking support for an eating disorder and wondering whether it matters if your therapist has lived experience, I think the answer is: sometimes, yes. Not because it is essential, and not because clinicians without such lived experience cannot offer exceptional care. But for some people, when that lived experience of the clinician has been progressed into recovery, it may shape the quality of attunement, understanding, or hope that they experience in the room.
Ultimately, what matters most is that your therapist (whether tey have lived experience or not) truly gets it - not only intellectually, but emotionally and relationally too. That they understand how complex, personal, frightening, and yet possible this work can be.
If you would like to explore whether, with my own lived and professional experience, we might be a good fit to work together, I look forward to hearing from you.
References
Bachner‑Melman, R., de Vos, J.A., Zohar, A.H., Shalom, M., Mcgilley, B., Oberlin, K., Murray, L., Lamarre, A., & Dooley‑Hash, S. (2020). Attitudes towards eating disorders clinicians with personal experience of an eating disorder. Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity.
Haywood, D., Baughman, F. D., Bosanac, P., Johnston, K., Gnatt, I., Haywood, J., Gullifer, J., & Rossell, S. (2023). Research Directions for Leveraging and Supporting the Lived Experience of Mental Illness within Psychology. Healthcare, 11(16), 2318.
Swales, M. A. (2009). Dialectical Behaviour Therapy: Description, research and future directions. International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy, 5(2), 164–177.
Warren, C. S., Schafer, K. J., Crowley, M. E. J., & Olivardia, R. (2013). Treatment providers with a personal history of eating pathology: A qualitative examination of common experiences. Eating Disorders, 21(4), 295–309.
Wasil, A., Venturo-Conerly, K., Shingleton, R., & Weisz, J. (2019). The motivating role of recovery self-disclosures from therapists and peers in eating disorder recovery: Perspectives of recovered women. Psychotherapy, 56(2), 170–180.
Williams, M., & Haverkamp, B. E. (2015). Eating disorder therapists’ personal eating disorder history and professional ethics: An interpretive description. Eating Disorders, 23(5), 393-410
World Health Organisation (2025). Transforming mental health through lived experience: Roadmap for integrating lived and living experience practitioners into policy, services and community.