Healing Binge Eating with Compassion and IFS
If you are struggling with binge eating disorder, you are not alone.
Binge-eating disorder (BED) is the most common eating disorder in Australia, though it often is less visible. Research suggests BED makes up almost half of all eating disorder cases and shame often keeps people silent and prevents people seeking support. Being trapped in a binge cycle can feel like you are living a double life. Going to work, managing family or study on the outside and battling urges, binges and shame internally.
You deserve support that understands the protective nature of your symptoms and therapy that honours the wisdom of your parts while helping them find gentler ways to do their important work.
Bingeing as Numbing and Escape
That moment mid binge can feel like an escape, everything disappears for a while and life feels calm and quiet. The immediacy of the comfort of food fades away the pain, stress and loneliness. From and Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective this is functional. Bingeing is a protective part that steps in to help you survive overwhelming feelings. Your whole body says “this is too much and I need a break”. Food can become an escape hatch, a numbing that is absolutely reel but often temporary. Once that relief is over shaming begins.
Flame, Blame, Shame
IFS lead trainer Cece Sykes offers a framework to understand this cycle we call it flame, blame and shame.
Flame: Something catches fire, maybe its work stress, loneliness or that feeling of fear and anxiety. Your nervous systems starts ringing all the alarm bells that something is wrong.
Binge: Your bingeing part rushes in as an emergency responder, anything to make it stop! It uses food to create immediate relief, turning down the volume on whatever was hurting
Blame: But before you have finished eating, shame shows up. “How could you do that again? You have no willpower. You are disgusting”
Shame: It consumes telling you to hide, ensure secracy and to handle this alone. Shame convinces you that you are flawed, broken and wrong.
Because the shame feels unbearable the cycle starts again. Your protective system in over drive, fighting internally and leaving you feeling stuck.
You have probably tried everything, meal plans, restriction, Ozempic. You throw away all the “trigger foods” and promise to have more will power next time.
This is what you have been missing: Your bingeing part developed for good reasons. It has been your coping skill through all the difficult times, it helped when nothing else worked or the alternative was too dire. Simply trying to eliminate it without understanding its purpose is likely to result in major backlash from your system, perhaps making things worse. Because you are missing why this part is so important, why it shows up and what it is trying to protect you form.
Binge eating recovery through internal family systems therapy (IFS) means not getting rid of parts but helping them to find new meaning and less harmful ways of doing their important work. In IFS, we talk about Self leadership.
Instead of immediately judging or berating your binge eatring part, you can ask “What were youi trying to protect me from today?”
Instead of being consumed by shame, “This was hard, I can see you are doing your best to cope?”
Instead of making false promises, “ What does this part of me need that doesn’t involve food?”
Shifting from criticism to curiosity in IFS is where healing starts. This is not about excusing behaviours but understanding the deeper pain it is trying to protect. Afterall, Shame doesn’t prevent bingeing, It fuels it.
Binge Eating and Trauma
Binge eating doesnt come out of nowhere, for many people bingeing parts are tied to trauma or persistant experiences of invalidation. A nervous system that has lived through chaos, neglect or immense pressure will find a way to self soothe. Food is often accessible, reliable and powerful.
The body remembers pain long after our mind forgets and bingeing may be your systems way of saying “I cant feel this right now”. If trauma taught your body to expect unpredictability, or you had childhood expereinces where food related to comfort, control or scarcity. Then bingeing isn’t being dramatic, it is responding to real signals from inconsistent environments that signalled to your body you are under threat.
Trauma doesn't always look like what you see in movies. It can be:
Childhood Food Experiences:
Growing up with food scarcity, where you learned to eat when food was available because you never knew when it would be again
Families where food was the primary source of comfort, celebration, or connection
Being restricted, monitored, or shamed around eating, creating a rebellious part that binges when no one is watching
Using food as your reliable companion when caregivers were unpredictable, absent, or emotionally unavailable
Relational Trauma:
Learning that your needs were "too much" or inconvenient, so your bingeing part steps in to meet needs without burdening others
Experiencing criticism, neglect, or abuse that created parts convinced you're fundamentally flawed and food becomes the only source of unconditional comfort
Losing important relationships or experiencing betrayal, leaving parts feeling they can only rely on food for consistency
Identity and Cultural Trauma:
Living in a larger body and experiencing weight stigma, creating parts that use food for both comfort and rebellion against a world that judges your worth by your size
Being marginalized for your race, sexuality, gender identity, or other aspects of who you are with food becoming a way to soothe the pain of not belonging
Surviving discrimination that taught your nervous system to be constantly vigilant, with binge eating providing rare moments of letting your guard down
Attachment Trauma:
Never learning healthy ways to self-soothe because caregivers couldn't teach what they didn't know themselves
Developing an anxious or disorganized attachment style, where your bingeing part tries to create the safety and connection that felt so unstable in relationships
Why "Just Stop" Advice Misses the Mark
Trauma isn't something you "get over" it's something you learn to carry differently. And your bingeing part has been carrying it the best way it knew how.
Traditional advice treats binge eating like it's about food, portion sizes, or lack of self-control. But in IFS we know your bingeing part isn't responding to physical hunger it's responding to emotional, psychological, or nervous system hunger. When your protective part reaches for food, it might actually be reaching for safety when your nervous system feels under threat, comfort when emotional pain feels too overwhelming to bear alone, control when everything else in life feels chaotic or unpredictable, connection when loneliness becomes unbearable, soothing when your inner critic has been particularly harsh, or escape when reality feels too intense to stay present for.
Here's what happens when you try to "just stop" or restrict your way out of binge eating. Your system goes into survival mode because years of dieting or food restriction have taught your nervous system that starvation might be coming. When you try to control portions or eliminate certain foods, alarm bells start ringing. Your bingeing part steps in even more forcefully, believing it needs to "stock up" while food is still available.
You are also fighting against your own protectors. Imagine if someone told you to "just stop" protecting your child when they are in danger. That's exactly what it feels like to your bingeing part when you try to eliminate it without understanding its purpose. It fights back harder because it believes your survival depends on it. Then when restriction fails, shame jumps in to tell you that you are the failure, not the approach. This shame becomes another flame that your bingeing part feels compelled to soothe, creating an even stronger cycle.
Willpower is like a muscle it gets tired, especially when you are using it to fight against parts of yourself that are trying to protect you. Binge eating recovery isn't about having more willpower. It's about needing less willpower because your internal system feels safer and more supported. When your nervous system trusts that your emotional needs will be met in healthy ways, that you won't be deprived or restricted, when you have other tools for managing overwhelming feelings, and that you are not fundamentally flawed or in danger, then your bingeing part can finally relax.
Throwing away "trigger foods" might seem logical, but it often creates more problems. It reinforces food fear because your system learns that certain foods are "dangerous" and you can't trust yourself around them, giving these foods more power rather than less.
It also ignores the real trigger, the emotional state, situation, or internal experience that leads to reaching for food is the real trigger. This approach can create scarcity panic, where your bingeing part thinks "If I can't have this food at home, I need to eat as much as possible when I do encounter it." Most importantly, it doesn't build internal resources, you never learn how to be around challenging foods while staying connected to your Self and your genuine needs.
When people say "just eat in moderation," they don't understand that your nervous system might not have a "moderate" setting when it comes to foods that have become associated with comfort, safety, or soothing. For parts carrying trauma, there are often only two modes: deprived or restricted, which feels like starvation or punishment, and abundant or unlimited, which feels like safety and care. True moderation becomes possible only when your nervous system feels genuinely safe and your emotional needs are being met in other ways.
Instead of trying to control the behavior, Internal Family Systems approaches binge eating by first understanding the parts involved. What is your bingeing part protecting you from? What does your critical part fear will happen if it stops monitoring your food so closely? What do your exiled parts need that they've been trying to get through food? How can your Self provide leadership and safety for all these parts? When your parts feel heard, understood, and supported, they naturally begin to relax their extreme strategies. Change happens from the inside out, not from forced external control.
Breaking the Binge Cycle
If you are caught in the binge shame cycle, here are some small, compassionate steps:
Pause after a binge and ask: “What was I escaping from?”
Name the cycle: Flame, blame, shame. Noticing it is the first step to interrupting it.
Offer gratitude: Thank the part that binged for trying to help you, even if the outcome was painful.
Experiment with alternatives: Movement, journaling, or internal resourcing exercises can help soothe the flame before it turns into a binge.
Reach for connection: Shame wants you to stay silent. Healing begins when you share your struggle with someone safe.
At Let’s Work On That, we specialise in IFS therapy, EMDR, and DBT for eating disorders, trauma, and shame recovery.
Together, we can honour the parts of you that have been working so hard and build new ways to cope that don’t rely on numbing or escape.
Compassionate IFS therapy for binge-eating disorder in Melbourne or online Australia wide.
References
Centre for Clinical Interventions. (2024). New research published on shame and eating disorder treatment. Government of Western Australia, Mental Health Commission. https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/News/New-Research-Published-on-Shame-and-Eating-Disorder-Treatment
Healthed. (2024). Binge eating: If you don’t ask, they won’t tell. https://www.healthed.com.au/clinical_articles/binge-eating-if-you-dont-ask-they-wont-tell/
InsideOut Institute. (2024). Groundbreaking digital therapies to improve access to evidence-based treatment for binge eating disorders. University of Sydney. https://insideoutinstitute.org.au/news/groundbreaking-digital-therapies-to-improve-access-to-evidence-based-treatment-for-binge-eating-disorders
Monash University. (2024, September 18). The most common eating disorder is one you’ve probably never heard of. Monash Lens. https://lens.monash.edu/@medicine-health/2024/09/18/1386819/the-most-common-eating-disorder-is-one-youve-probably-never-heard-of
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the Internal Family Systems model. Sounds True.
Sykes, C. (2014). The addictive system: An Internal Family Systems perspective. In M. G. Rumsey, C. B. Nackerud, & S. P. Cook (Eds.), Self-leadership in psychotherapy: The Internal Family Systems model (pp. 229–246). Routledge.
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
