Craig Lee Counselling and Psychotherapy

Craig Lee Counselling and Psychotherapy Qualified Counsellor/Psychotherapist providing online therapy for eating disorders and body image issues.

One of my favourite metaphors in ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is the “two scales” metaphor. Understood and a...
19/05/2026

One of my favourite metaphors in ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is the “two scales” metaphor. Understood and applied correctly, it has the power to change not just how you think about recovery, but about handling ALL of life’s challenges.

The idea is this: we all have two scales (or dials), like the volume buttons on your phone. They both have settings ranging from 0-10. The first one is labelled ‘discomfort’ (which includes anxiety, fear, guilt, and any other uncomfortable emotion). The second one is labelled ‘willingness’.

You’ve probably spent a lot of time, energy, and resources into trying to turn down the first one. Sometimes, it might even work for a short period of time, only for you to find it turns itself all the way back up. The reality is that the more you try to control that scale, the louder and more stuck it becomes over time.

The second scale is willingness. This is your willingness to experience difficult, uncomfortable thoughts/feelings and still taking steps to move towards what truly matters to you.

Whilst you can’t change the first scale, you can learn to turn the second one all the way up. When you do that, your ability to accept and tolerate discomfort increases and you’re able to act more in line with your values, living a more meaningful life.

Turning up the willingness scale means that even when anxiety/guilt/discomfort is high, you’re still able to do the things those feelings have previously been getting in the way of.

This doesn’t just mean denying the difficult feelings or “powering through”, and isn’t the same thing as “will power’. It’s a process of working with a therapist to learn the skills and concepts necessary for you to find that willingness scale and turn it up to 10.

When that happens, you don’t have to wait for discomfort to go before you can act in ways that align with who you want to be and how you want to live.

Overcoming an eating disorder and reclaiming your life (or maybe living life fully for the first time…) isn’t just about...
16/05/2026

Overcoming an eating disorder and reclaiming your life (or maybe living life fully for the first time…) isn’t just about food.

It’s also about your psychological flexibility, your ability to deal with difficult thoughts and feelings, your relationships, your identity, your values, your ability to know what matters and take steps towards those things.

It’s about a sense of meaning and purpose in the world that goes beyond food and body image.

Therapy doesn’t always have to be talking about food and body image. In fact, I’d argue that therapy which ONLY talks about food, weight, and body image risks not going far enough and holds you back from your full potential.

These things that are behind your good issues are things that can be worked on and developed.

You can fully recover from an eating disorder and live a rich, meaningful life.

Experiential avoidance.This means that despite how different these behaviours look on the surface, they all serve the sa...
23/04/2026

Experiential avoidance.

This means that despite how different these behaviours look on the surface, they all serve the same function: avoiding uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, sensations, and other unwanted experiences.

Experiential avoidance isn’t the only thing that keeps you stuck but as one of the core drivers of eating disorder/disordered eating behaviours, it’s one of the key parts of moving forwards.

Whether it’s anxiety, guilt, anger, disgust, boredom or despair, change comes from learning to recognise how trying to avoid these experiences is part of the problem, and from increasing your ability to tolerate them.

Once you can do this, it’s not just your relationship with food and body image that can improve, but every area of your life that was being affected by experiential avoidance.

The idea that letting go of food rules, rigid diets, and compulsive exercise will mean “letting yourself go” is a common...
19/03/2026

The idea that letting go of food rules, rigid diets, and compulsive exercise will mean “letting yourself go” is a common fear, but it’s completely flawed.

It’s the fear and the rigidity itself that’s contributing to the problem and keeping you stuck. Recovery does not mean abandoning your values around health. Nutrition and movement are key components of mental and physical wellbeing but the less flexibility you have around these things, the more they become a weapon you use against yourself (which ironically moves you further away from actual health).

It’s your all-or-nothing, black and white mindset that tells you you’re either all in or all out. This is reinforced on the one hand by numerous influencers, podcasters, and health-optimisation fanatics that aggressively promote rigidity (many of whom have their own issues), and on the other hand by your own experiences which have yet to prove to you that there is a middle way to be found.

You need to know that there is a life for you that still involves eating well and exercise but has balance and flexibility built into it.

This is a life in which you’re no longer obsessed by food and your body, or having to deal with the constant guilt, frustration, and sacrifices. It’s a life in which you enjoy food and movement/exercise whilst still living a meaningful, values-driven life. It takes courage to be willing to try something different and to trust that such a life is possible.

As scary and challenging as it might be, myself and others who have walked this path can tell you that it’s always worth it.

It’s not uncommon for difficult thoughts, feelings, and behaviours to temporarily get a lot worse at the start of therap...
18/02/2026

It’s not uncommon for difficult thoughts, feelings, and behaviours to temporarily get a lot worse at the start of therapy, increasing in both intensity and frequency. This is called an ‘extinction burst’; it’s basically the eating disorder holding on for its life because it knows it’s under threat.

As unconfortable as it can be, it’s completely normal. Importantly, you’re likely to manage it a lot better if you expect that it might happen AND have a good therapist to prepare and work through it with you.

This is one of the reasons therapy needs to help you tolerate discomfort, rather than focus on trying to get rid of it. As unpleasent as emotions like anxiety and guilt are, they are an unavoidable part of moving beyond the eating disorder and your therapist must be able to help support you in handling those experiences.

On the other side of an extinction burst is where you you can find a life that made it worth it to keep going.

(Note: There is a difference between things getting worse due to an extinction burst and things getting worse due to the therapy/therapist not being suitable. Make sure your therapist has specific training in eating disorders and is someone who understands this issue).

Eating disorders and disordered eating behaviours serve a purpose. They are fulfilling a need you once had and still hav...
31/01/2026

Eating disorders and disordered eating behaviours serve a purpose. They are fulfilling a need you once had and still have, often around themes of safety, coping, and control.

Letting go of the behaviours a part of you desperately wants rid of can’t happen without a reason to let go that actually deals with how those behaviours have been serving you. This involves addressing the physiological AND psychological aspects that make letting go feel so difficult.

Most of the people I work with recognise that part of themselves that doesn’t want to or is afraid to let go. This is an easily neglected aspect of therapy which has the potential to bring about real, long-lasting change.

Eating disorders thrive by sucking you into practicing things that strengthen it such as repeating food rules, avoiding ...
09/01/2026

Eating disorders thrive by sucking you into practicing things that strengthen it such as repeating food rules, avoiding things you fear, overexertion, and isolating yourself.

Breaking this cycle means asking yourself “What do I want my life to grow toward?” rather than what you want to control and then practicing those things repeatedly.

This might mean practicing connecting with others, being more flexible, expressing care, and engaging in valued activities. You’re absolutely going to do this imperfectly at first but perfection isn’t the goal when you’re moving towards a more meaningful life that feels worth living.

We can’t escape guilt. Alongside suffering and death (what Viktor Frankl called the ‘Tragic Triad’), guilt is an inescap...
07/01/2026

We can’t escape guilt. Alongside suffering and death (what Viktor Frankl called the ‘Tragic Triad’), guilt is an inescapable part of what makes us human. When it’s authentic, guilt acts as a signal to tell us when our behaviour is taking us away from what truly matters.

Food guilt is something different. Whether it’s from feeling like you’ve lost control, broken food rules, or not “earned” what you ate, this kind of guilt only serves the eating disorder and its relentless standards.

Recovery requires learning to recognise authentic from inauthentic guilt and respond in a meaningful way. This is where you find your freedom to do what moves you towards a fulfilling life.

As long as you’re human, you have no way of avoiding difficult emotions. The usual way many of us handle unpleasant feel...
06/01/2026

As long as you’re human, you have no way of avoiding difficult emotions. The usual way many of us handle unpleasant feelings is to:

Repress (unconsciously keep them hidden)
Supress (deliberately force them down)
Express (direct them outwards)

The first two don’t bring any lasting relief and the third only brings partial relief, without changing the driving force behind the emotion itself. When emotions are dealt with in these ways, they can find an outlet in behaviours related to food and body image.

The key is in learning to become more responsive rather than reactive. There’s a space between what you feel and what you do; being able to recognise, widen, and make choices in this space is where therapy can really make a difference.

We can only do this by finding a reason to endure and process difficult feelings, rather than trying to eliminate them altogether.

As much as it can feel like you “just need to try harder”, willpower will not overcome food issues because they were nev...
03/01/2026

As much as it can feel like you “just need to try harder”, willpower will not overcome food issues because they were never a willpower problem to begin with.

This doesn’t mean letting go of effort but realising when your efforts are being focused in the wrong direction.

Recovery is about finding your way to freedom, rather than deeper into the prison which the “willpower” signs are taking you.

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Newton Aycliffe

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