23 Eating Disorder Group Therapy Activities

Eating disorders are complex mental health conditions that can significantly impact a person’s physical health, emotional well-being, relationships, and overall quality of life. Individuals living with an eating disorder may experience distressing thoughts related to food, eating behaviors, body image concerns, and patterns that interfere with daily functioning. Because eating disorders affect each person differently, treatment requires an individualized approach that considers both eating disorder symptoms and the underlying emotional experiences contributing to them.

In this post, I discuss 23 eating disorder group therapy activities that counselors and mental health professionals can use to support recovery, encourage therapeutic discussion, build coping skills, and help clients develop a healthier relationship with themselves and their recovery process.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) recognizes anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder as common eating disorders that can affect individuals across the lifespan. While these disorders may present differently, each can have significant psychological and physical health consequences and requires appropriate clinical assessment and treatment.

Eating disorders can develop at any age, although research has identified adolescence and young adulthood as common periods for onset. According to NIMH, binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa frequently emerge during adolescence or early adulthood, highlighting the importance of early recognition, intervention, and access to appropriate care.

Although eating disorders are diagnosed more frequently among females, they can affect individuals of all genders, ages, body sizes, and backgrounds. Eating disorders among males and other underrecognized populations may be overlooked due to stigma, misconceptions about who develops eating disorders, and differences in symptom presentation.

When counselors work with individuals living with an eating disorder, it is important to consider the presence of co-occurring mental health concerns. Eating disorders commonly occur alongside conditions such as anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, trauma-related symptoms, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and substance use disorders. Addressing these overlapping concerns can be an important component of providing comprehensive, recovery-focused care.

Eating disorders can also impact children and adolescents. Younger clients may present with unique developmental considerations that require age-appropriate assessment and intervention. For example, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) involves significant food avoidance or restriction that is not primarily driven by concerns about body shape, size, or weight. Individuals with ARFID may experience sensory sensitivities, fear-based avoidance, or limited eating patterns that can negatively affect nutritional intake, health, and daily functioning.

For counselors working with clients who are living with an eating disorder, group therapy can be a valuable component of treatment. Eating disorder group therapy provides opportunities for psychoeducation, skill development, emotional processing, and connection with others who may share similar experiences.

How Does Group Therapy Help Individuals with Eating Disorders?

There are a variety of benefits that can come from group therapy as part of eating disorder treatment. Group therapy sessions can provide a supportive environment where clients can learn about eating disorders, explore recovery-related challenges, and develop practical skills that support emotional regulation and long-term healing.

Group therapy gives clients the opportunity to connect with others who can relate to their struggles and experiences. Individuals living with an eating disorder may experience shame, secrecy, or withdrawal from relationships, which can contribute to feelings of isolation. Connecting with others in a structured therapeutic environment can provide validation, reduce feelings of being alone, and help clients recognize that recovery is possible.

Additionally, group therapy provides clients with opportunities to practice interpersonal skills, vulnerability, communication, and receiving support from others. For some individuals, learning to express emotions, ask for help, and tolerate being seen by others can be an important part of the recovery process.

Group therapy also allows clients to provide encouragement, compassion, and support to other group members. Offering support to others can strengthen feelings of connection, purpose, and confidence while reinforcing recovery-focused perspectives.

Counselors facilitating eating disorder group therapy activities can tailor interventions based on the needs of group members, treatment setting, developmental level, clinical presentation, and stage of recovery. Activities may focus on increasing insight, developing coping skills, challenging unhelpful thoughts, improving emotional regulation, strengthening self-compassion, and supporting relapse prevention.

Considerations Before Facilitating an Eating Disorder Group

Eating disorder group therapy can provide meaningful opportunities for connection, skill development, and recovery-focused support. However, these groups require thoughtful planning and clinical judgment. Counselors should consider each client’s needs, readiness for group treatment, and overall treatment goals before incorporating group activities.

Clinical Consideration	What Counselors Should Consider
Assess Appropriateness for Group Treatment	Consider whether group therapy is appropriate based on each client’s symptoms, medical stability, treatment goals, ability to participate safely with others, and current level of care needs. Some clients may require additional individual support or a higher level of treatment before participating in certain groups.
Create Clear Group Guidelines	Establish expectations around confidentiality, respectful communication, and maintaining a recovery-focused environment. Counselors should address the importance of avoiding detailed discussions about eating disorder behaviors, calories, weight, body measurements, or comparisons between group members.
Reduce Comparison and Competition	Individuals living with eating disorders may experience urges to compare symptoms, progress, body image concerns, or recovery experiences. Group facilitators should redirect conversations toward personal growth, coping skills, emotional experiences, and recovery goals.
Monitor for Emotional Distress	Group discussions may bring up difficult emotions, memories, or triggers. Counselors should be prepared to provide support, encourage appropriate coping strategies, and help clients process challenging experiences in a safe and therapeutic manner.
Adapt Activities to the Group	The most appropriate activities will depend on factors such as age, diagnosis, developmental level, treatment setting, and stage of recovery. Activities used with adolescents may differ from those used with adults in outpatient, intensive outpatient, partial hospitalization, or residential settings.
Maintain a Recovery-Focused Approach	Effective eating disorder groups should focus on building insight, strengthening coping skills, improving emotional regulation, increasing self-compassion, and supporting meaningful recovery goals.

Clinical Note: Eating disorder group therapy activities should be facilitated by qualified mental health professionals within an appropriate treatment framework. Interventions should be individualized based on each client’s symptoms, medical needs, risk factors, developmental considerations, and treatment plan.

Group Therapy Activities for Clients with Eating Disorders

The most effective eating disorder group therapy activities will vary based on the characteristics and needs of each group. For example, activities used with adolescents living with an eating disorder may differ from activities used with adults in outpatient treatment or higher levels of care. Counselors should consider each group member’s treatment goals, readiness for change, clinical needs, and recovery stage when selecting appropriate interventions.

The following eating disorder group therapy activities are designed to support professionally facilitated groups by encouraging therapeutic discussion, increasing self-awareness, developing recovery skills, and helping clients explore meaningful steps toward healing.

1. Writing a Letter to the Eating Disorder

Many individuals describe their eating disorder as having its own voice that influences thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This narrative therapy-inspired exercise helps clients separate their identity from the disorder while exploring how it has affected different areas of their lives.

What It Is: Clients write a letter addressed to their eating disorder as though it were a separate entity or person. They are encouraged to describe how the disorder has impacted their relationships, physical health, emotions, goals, and overall quality of life while expressing thoughts and feelings that may have been difficult to verbalize.

How It Helps Clients: Externalizing the eating disorder can reduce shame and self-blame while reinforcing that the illness does not define the individual. The activity often increases insight into the costs of the disorder, strengthens motivation for recovery, and encourages emotional processing within a supportive group environment.

How To Do It: Provide each participant with paper and writing materials, allowing approximately 15 to 20 minutes for reflection. Invite group members to share portions of their letter if they feel comfortable, followed by supportive discussion. At the end of the activity, clients may choose to keep, tear up, shred, or safely dispose of the letter as a symbolic step in their recovery journey.

2. Understanding Eating Disorders

Accurate education provides clients with a stronger understanding of their symptoms while helping reduce stigma, misinformation, and feelings of isolation. Psychoeducation also establishes a common foundation that supports future therapeutic work throughout the group.

What It Is: This activity focuses on teaching participants about eating disorders using evidence-based information. Topics may include common diagnoses, warning signs, medical and psychological effects, maintaining factors, recovery expectations, and the fact that eating disorders affect individuals of all genders, ages, body sizes, and backgrounds.

How It Helps Clients: Learning about eating disorders can normalize clients’ experiences without normalizing the illness itself. Increased understanding often reduces shame, encourages treatment engagement, and helps participants recognize that recovery is possible while acknowledging that progress is rarely linear.

How To Do It: Present educational material using handouts, slides, or discussion prompts before inviting questions from the group. Encourage participants to reflect on misconceptions they previously believed and discuss new insights that may influence their recovery moving forward.

3. Identifying Personal Recovery Triggers

Recovery becomes more manageable when clients can recognize situations, emotions, and environments that increase vulnerability to eating disorder thoughts and behaviors. Identifying triggers creates opportunities to develop proactive coping strategies before challenges occur.

What It Is: Clients create a personalized list of internal and external triggers that contribute to eating disorder symptoms. Internal triggers may include anxiety, loneliness, perfectionism, or low self-esteem, while external triggers may involve social media, body comparisons, conflict, stressful life events, or specific environments.

How It Helps Clients: Increased awareness of personal triggers supports relapse prevention by helping clients anticipate difficult situations rather than reacting impulsively. Sharing experiences within the group also helps members recognize common patterns while learning practical coping strategies from one another.

How To Do It: Ask participants to independently identify their most significant triggers before discussing them together as a group. Facilitate a collaborative conversation about healthy coping skills, support resources, and alternative responses that clients can practice when these situations arise.

4. Applying the CBT Triangle

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most well-established treatment approaches for eating disorders. Helping clients understand the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors provides a practical framework for recognizing patterns that maintain the disorder.

What It Is: Introduce the CBT triangle by illustrating how thoughts influence emotions, emotions influence behaviors, and behaviors reinforce thoughts. Use eating disorder-specific examples, such as how body image thoughts may contribute to anxiety and lead to restrictive eating, binge eating, or compensatory behaviors.

How It Helps Clients: Clients begin recognizing that changing behaviors often requires addressing underlying thinking patterns rather than focusing exclusively on food or weight. This increased awareness supports cognitive restructuring, emotional regulation, and healthier behavioral choices throughout recovery.

How To Do It: Draw the CBT triangle on a whiteboard or provide a worksheet with the model. Ask participants to work through a recent situation by identifying the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors involved before discussing healthier alternative thoughts and coping responses as a group.

5. Identifying and Challenging Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive distortions are habitual patterns of thinking that can reinforce eating disorder symptoms and contribute to emotional distress. Learning to identify and challenge these distorted beliefs is a foundational cognitive-behavioral intervention.

What It Is: Teach participants about common cognitive distortions associated with eating disorders, including all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing, overgeneralization, emotional reasoning, labeling, and perfectionism. Review realistic examples that illustrate how these distortions influence recovery.

How It Helps Clients: Developing the ability to recognize distorted thinking helps clients evaluate whether their thoughts are accurate, balanced, and helpful. Over time, replacing distorted beliefs with more realistic perspectives can reduce emotional distress and support healthier behavioral decisions.

How To Do It: Provide examples of common eating disorder thoughts and ask participants to identify the cognitive distortion being demonstrated. Work together to develop balanced replacement thoughts while encouraging clients to practice this skill between group sessions using thought records or journaling exercises.

6. Body Image Thought Challenging

Negative body image is a common maintaining factor in many eating disorders. This activity focuses on helping clients examine body-related thoughts objectively rather than accepting them as facts.

What It Is: Clients identify recurring body image thoughts that contribute to emotional distress or eating disorder behaviors. The group then practices evaluating the evidence supporting and contradicting those thoughts before developing more balanced and compassionate alternatives.

How It Helps Clients: Challenging body image-related thinking can reduce automatic self-criticism while increasing cognitive flexibility. Over time, clients learn that they do not need to believe every negative thought they have about their appearance and can instead respond with greater self-awareness and self-compassion.

How To Do It: Invite participants to write down one body image thought they frequently experience, avoiding unnecessary discussion of weight or appearance details that could be triggering for the group. Facilitate a structured discussion examining evidence for and against each thought before collaboratively creating realistic replacement statements that support recovery.

7. Guided Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness can help clients develop greater awareness of their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without immediately reacting to them. Rather than attempting to eliminate difficult experiences, mindfulness encourages clients to acknowledge them with curiosity and acceptance, which can reduce the urge to engage in eating disorder behaviors.

What It Is: This activity introduces clients to mindfulness practices such as diaphragmatic breathing, body awareness, guided imagery, or mindful observation. The focus is on noticing thoughts and sensations without judgment while remaining grounded in the present moment.

How It Helps Clients: Regular mindfulness practice can improve emotional regulation, reduce anxiety, and increase distress tolerance. For individuals recovering from an eating disorder, these skills may help them experience uncomfortable thoughts, body sensations, or meal-related anxiety without automatically responding through restrictive eating, binge eating, or compensatory behaviors.

How To Do It: Begin with a brief explanation of mindfulness before guiding the group through a five- to ten-minute exercise. Afterward, encourage participants to discuss what they noticed during the practice, including any challenges they experienced. Invite clients to practice one mindfulness exercise between sessions and discuss their experiences during the following group.

8. Grounding Using the Five Senses

Grounding techniques help clients reconnect with the present moment during periods of overwhelming anxiety, emotional distress, or intense eating disorder urges. These skills are particularly useful when clients feel emotionally flooded or disconnected from their surroundings.

What It Is: This activity teaches clients how to intentionally use their five senses to shift attention away from distressing thoughts and toward their immediate environment. Common techniques include identifying things they can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.

How It Helps Clients: Grounding exercises can interrupt cycles of rumination, reduce emotional intensity, and increase a client’s ability to tolerate distress without acting on eating disorder behaviors. Because these exercises require little preparation, they can be used in a variety of real-world situations, including before meals, after difficult conversations, or during periods of heightened anxiety.

How To Do It: Guide the group through a structured 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise while encouraging participants to fully engage each of their senses. After completing the activity, facilitate a discussion about situations where grounding techniques may be helpful and encourage clients to practice them outside of group sessions.

9. Emotion Identification Exercise

Many individuals living with eating disorders have difficulty recognizing, labeling, or expressing emotions. Improving emotional awareness can strengthen coping skills while reducing reliance on eating disorder behaviors as a way of managing emotional distress.

What It Is: Clients practice identifying emotions they have recently experienced by using an emotions wheel or feelings list. They also explore how these emotions presented physically within their bodies and how they influenced their thoughts and behaviors.

How It Helps Clients: Developing emotional awareness helps clients respond more intentionally to difficult feelings instead of avoiding or suppressing them. Increased emotional literacy also improves communication, self-awareness, and the ability to identify coping strategies that address the underlying emotion rather than the eating disorder symptoms.

How To Do It: Provide each participant with an emotions wheel or feelings chart and ask them to reflect on a recent emotionally significant event. Encourage discussion about the emotions they experienced, physical sensations they noticed, and healthy coping strategies they could use when similar emotions arise in the future.

10. Building a Personalized Coping Skills Toolbox

Recovery is strengthened when clients have multiple healthy coping strategies available rather than relying on a single technique. This activity helps participants intentionally build a collection of coping skills that can be used across a variety of situations.

What It Is: Clients identify coping strategies that help manage anxiety, urges, emotional distress, body image concerns, and interpersonal stress. The toolbox may include relaxation exercises, grounding techniques, journaling prompts, distraction activities, supportive contacts, affirmations, and self-soothing techniques.

How It Helps Clients: Having a personalized coping plan increases confidence and preparedness during challenging moments. Clients also benefit from learning additional strategies from other group members, expanding the number of practical tools available throughout recovery.

How To Do It: Ask participants to create a written or visual coping toolbox by listing healthy skills they currently use along with several new techniques they would like to practice. Encourage clients to keep their toolbox easily accessible and revisit it whenever eating disorder urges become more intense.

11. Safe Place Visualization and Drawing

Visualization exercises can help clients cultivate a sense of emotional safety during periods of heightened stress or vulnerability. This activity combines creative expression with guided imagery to strengthen self-soothing skills that can be used throughout recovery.

What It Is: Clients participate in a guided visualization in which they imagine a place where they feel calm, protected, and supported. They then create a drawing or visual representation of that place using art supplies or other creative materials.

How It Helps Clients: Developing a personalized safe place can provide clients with a reliable mental resource during moments of distress, meal-related anxiety, or overwhelming emotions. The exercise also promotes relaxation while encouraging clients to identify the characteristics that help them feel emotionally secure.

How To Do It: Lead participants through a brief guided visualization before providing time to draw or describe their safe place. Invite clients to share as much or as little about their image as they feel comfortable and discuss situations where mentally returning to this safe place could support their recovery.

12. Recovery-Supportive Self-Care Planning

Self-care extends beyond relaxation and should include activities that support physical, emotional, psychological, and social well-being. For individuals recovering from an eating disorder, intentional self-care can strengthen resilience while reducing vulnerability to relapse.

What It Is: Clients evaluate their current self-care habits across multiple areas of wellness, including sleep, nutrition, movement, stress management, relationships, hobbies, and emotional health. They identify realistic ways to strengthen routines that support long-term recovery.

How It Helps Clients: This activity encourages clients to recognize that consistent self-care is an important component of recovery rather than a reward that must be earned. Developing balanced routines may improve emotional regulation, reduce stress, and increase overall quality of life.

How To Do It: Provide participants with a self-care assessment or worksheet and ask them to identify areas they would like to strengthen. Encourage each client to establish two or three realistic self-care goals for the coming week and begin the next group session by discussing their experiences implementing those changes.

13. Values Exploration

Eating disorders often pull individuals away from the people, experiences, and goals that matter most to them. This Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)-informed activity helps clients reconnect with their core values and consider how recovery can move them toward a more meaningful life.

What It Is: Clients identify personal values across important life domains such as relationships, family, health, education, career, spirituality, and personal growth. They then explore how their eating disorder has either supported or interfered with living according to those values.

How It Helps Clients: Connecting recovery to deeply held values can strengthen intrinsic motivation and provide direction during difficult moments. Rather than focusing solely on symptom reduction, clients begin working toward a life that feels personally meaningful and aligned with their long-term goals.

How To Do It: Provide participants with a values worksheet or list of common life values and ask them to identify the five that feel most important. Facilitate a discussion about ways the eating disorder has created distance from those values and encourage clients to identify one recovery-focused action they can take this week that better aligns with what matters most to them.

14. Recovery Timeline

Recovery is rarely a straight line, and many clients benefit from reflecting on the experiences that have shaped their journey. Creating a visual timeline helps participants recognize patterns, identify strengths, and develop greater insight into their recovery process.

What It Is: Clients create a timeline that includes significant life events related to their eating disorder, treatment experiences, setbacks, successes, and meaningful moments of growth. They are encouraged to include both challenges and examples of resilience throughout their recovery journey.

How It Helps Clients: Reviewing the timeline helps clients recognize progress that may otherwise go unnoticed while increasing awareness of recurring triggers or themes. It also reinforces the idea that setbacks do not erase growth and that recovery is often built through persistence over time.

How To Do It: Provide paper, markers, or timeline worksheets and allow clients time to complete their personal timeline. Invite participants to share the aspects they feel comfortable discussing and facilitate a supportive conversation focused on strengths, lessons learned, and hopes for the future rather than specific eating disorder behaviors.

15. Recovery Vision Exercise

Many individuals spend years organizing their lives around their eating disorder, making it difficult to imagine what recovery could look like. This activity encourages clients to envision a future guided by personal goals rather than illness.

What It Is: Clients reflect on what they hope their lives will look like after recovery, considering areas such as relationships, work, education, hobbies, physical health, emotional well-being, and overall quality of life. The focus remains on building a fulfilling future rather than achieving a particular body size or appearance.

How It Helps Clients: Creating a recovery vision increases hope while strengthening motivation to tolerate the challenges that often accompany treatment. It shifts attention away from short-term discomfort and toward meaningful long-term outcomes that support sustained recovery.

How To Do It: Ask participants to write, draw, or create a vision board illustrating what they hope life will look like in recovery. Encourage discussion about the specific steps they can begin taking now that move them closer to that future.

16. Building a Healthy Support System

Strong social support is associated with improved treatment engagement and long-term recovery outcomes. This activity helps clients identify the people and resources that can provide encouragement, accountability, and practical assistance throughout their recovery.

What It Is: Clients evaluate the relationships in their lives by identifying individuals who provide healthy support, those who may unintentionally reinforce eating disorder behaviors, and areas where additional support may be beneficial. They also discuss the qualities that contribute to healthy, recovery-oriented relationships.

How It Helps Clients: Mapping available support helps clients recognize they do not have to recover alone. It also encourages healthy boundary setting, effective communication, and intentional use of professional and personal support systems during periods of increased vulnerability.

How To Do It: Provide participants with a support map worksheet and ask them to identify trusted family members, friends, treatment providers, and community resources. Facilitate discussion about how clients can strengthen these relationships and communicate their recovery needs more effectively.

17. Understanding Co-Occurring Mental Health Conditions

Eating disorders frequently occur alongside other mental health concerns that can influence treatment planning and recovery. Increasing awareness of these conditions helps clients better understand the complexity of their experiences while reducing shame and self-blame.

What It Is: This psychoeducational activity reviews common co-occurring conditions such as anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, trauma-related disorders, substance use disorders, and personality-related difficulties. Discussion focuses on how these conditions may interact with eating disorder symptoms.

How It Helps Clients: Clients often experience relief when they learn that many symptoms commonly occur together and are treatable. Increased understanding promotes treatment engagement while reinforcing the importance of comprehensive care that addresses the whole person rather than focusing exclusively on eating behaviors.

How To Do It: Present evidence-based educational information using handouts or visual aids before facilitating a group discussion about the connections between emotional health and eating disorders. Emphasize that individual diagnoses should always be determined through appropriate clinical assessment rather than self-diagnosis.

18. Stages of Change Discussion

Recovery from an eating disorder is rarely a linear process, and clients often move back and forth between different levels of readiness for change. Understanding the Stages of Change model can help normalize ambivalence while encouraging clients to identify realistic next steps in their recovery.

What It Is: This activity introduces the Transtheoretical Model of Change, including precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and relapse or recurrence. Clients reflect on where they currently see themselves and discuss what moving toward the next stage may look like.

How It Helps Clients: Recognizing that motivation naturally fluctuates can reduce shame when recovery feels difficult. Clients gain insight into their own readiness for change while identifying barriers, strengths, and supports that can help them continue progressing toward recovery goals.

How To Do It: Provide a visual overview of each stage of change and invite participants to identify the stage they believe best reflects their current experience. Facilitate discussion about what has helped them move forward in the past and collaboratively brainstorm practical strategies for taking the next recovery-oriented step.

19. Relapse Prevention Planning

Relapse prevention is an essential component of eating disorder treatment and should begin well before treatment ends. Preparing for future challenges allows clients to respond intentionally rather than reacting impulsively when setbacks occur.

What It Is: Clients develop an individualized relapse prevention plan that identifies personal warning signs, common triggers, coping strategies, protective factors, support people, and specific actions to take if symptoms begin returning. The emphasis is on recognizing early warning signs before they develop into larger setbacks.

How It Helps Clients: Creating a written relapse prevention plan increases confidence while reducing uncertainty about how to respond during difficult periods. Clients also learn to view setbacks as opportunities for learning rather than evidence that recovery has failed.

How To Do It: Provide participants with a structured relapse prevention worksheet and guide them through each section. Encourage clients to share portions of their plan with trusted support people or treatment providers and remind them to review and update their plan regularly as recovery progresses.

20. Meal Support Planning

Meals and snacks can be among the most anxiety-provoking situations for individuals recovering from an eating disorder. Developing a structured coping plan beforehand helps clients approach these situations with greater confidence and preparation.

What It Is: Clients identify meal-related situations that commonly increase anxiety and create personalized plans for managing those experiences. Plans may include coping skills to use before, during, and after meals, supportive self-talk, grounding techniques, and people they can contact if additional support is needed.

How It Helps Clients: Preparing in advance reduces reliance on impulsive decision-making during emotionally intense situations. Clients become more aware of the strategies that help them tolerate meal-related distress while reinforcing confidence in their ability to navigate recovery challenges successfully.

How To Do It: Ask participants to identify one upcoming meal or eating situation they anticipate will be difficult. Guide them in developing a written coping plan that includes specific coping strategies, sources of support, and realistic recovery-focused goals they can review before the event.

21. Self-Compassion Letter Exercise

Many individuals living with eating disorders experience intense self-criticism that reinforces shame and perfectionism. Practicing self-compassion can help clients develop a more supportive and balanced relationship with themselves throughout recovery.

What It Is: Clients write a letter to themselves from the perspective of a compassionate friend, trusted mentor, or supportive loved one. The letter acknowledges current struggles while emphasizing understanding, encouragement, and hope rather than criticism or unrealistic expectations.

How It Helps Clients: This exercise encourages clients to recognize the difference between self-criticism and self-compassion while strengthening emotional resilience. Research suggests that increasing self-compassion may reduce shame, perfectionism, and harsh self-judgment, all of which commonly contribute to eating disorder symptoms.

How To Do It: Encourage participants to imagine what they would say to someone they deeply cared about who was facing the same challenges. Allow time for writing before inviting clients to reflect on the experience, emphasizing that sharing the letter with the group is always optional.

22. Recovery Strengths Inventory

Clients often become so focused on their struggles that they overlook the personal strengths that have helped them reach treatment and continue working toward recovery. This activity shifts attention toward resilience, existing resources, and previous successes.

What It Is: Participants identify personal strengths, positive character traits, coping skills, supportive relationships, and previous experiences that demonstrate resilience. They also reflect on how these strengths can continue supporting their recovery moving forward.

How It Helps Clients: Recognizing existing strengths increases self-efficacy and promotes a more balanced self-view. The activity also encourages hope by reminding clients that they already possess many of the internal and external resources needed to navigate future recovery challenges.

How To Do It: Provide participants with a strengths worksheet or prompt them to create a written inventory of their personal strengths and recovery successes. Invite group members to share their lists and encourage peers to respectfully identify additional strengths they observe in one another, reinforcing a supportive and strengths-based group environment.

23. Challenging Food Rules

Many individuals recovering from eating disorders develop rigid beliefs or rules about food that can increase anxiety, reinforce avoidance, and maintain disordered eating patterns. Exploring these beliefs in a supportive group environment can help clients develop greater flexibility and a more balanced relationship with food.

What It Is: This activity helps clients identify and examine personal food rules, such as beliefs about what foods are acceptable, when they are allowed to eat, or conditions they believe must be met before eating certain foods. Group members explore where these rules came from, how they impact their lives, and whether these beliefs are accurate, helpful, or aligned with recovery.

How It Helps Clients: Challenging rigid food rules can reduce fear, perfectionism, and black-and-white thinking around eating. Clients begin developing cognitive flexibility by recognizing that many food-related beliefs are influenced by the eating disorder rather than objective facts. This process can support increased trust, reduced anxiety, and healthier decision-making throughout recovery.

How To Do It: Ask participants to identify one food-related rule or belief they notice influencing their thoughts or behaviors. Guide the group through questions such as where the rule originated, what evidence supports or challenges it, how following the rule affects their life, and what a more balanced recovery-focused perspective might look like. Encourage clients to develop compassionate replacement statements that support flexibility and continued recovery.

Final Thoughts on Eating Disorder Group Therapy Activities for Your Clients

Group therapy activities for eating disorders can be useful tools in outpatient and inpatient treatment programs. Group therapy tends to be more affordable than individual therapy, so for many, group sessions may be their only exposure to mental health treatment at that time. With that in mind, it is important to be mindful of the exercises that are used to ensure a purposeful use of your group session.

If you prefer to have a formal handout to guide your group therapy activities for eating disorders, resources such as our Eating Disorder Worksheets, can provide you with individual worksheets or packages that can guide your group sessions. A benefit to using handouts is that it gives your client something to take home from them that can be reviewed when needed.

TherapyByPro is a trusted resource for mental health professionals worldwide. Our therapy tools are designed with one mission in mind: to save you time and help you focus on what truly matters-your clients. Every worksheet, counseling script, and therapy poster in our shop is professionally crafted to simplify your workflow, enhance your sessions, reduce stress, and most of all, help your clients.

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Resources

The following resources provide additional information on evidence-based approaches to eating disorder treatment, including cognitive-behavioral interventions, emotion regulation skills, mindfulness-based approaches, relapse prevention, and recovery-focused care.

• • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Eating Disorders: Recognition and Treatment (NG69).
  • American Psychiatric Association. Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Patients With Eating Disorders.
  • Fairburn, C. G. (2008). Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eating Disorders. Guilford Press.
  • Fairburn, C. G., Cooper, Z., & Shafran, R. (2003). Cognitive behaviour therapy for eating disorders: A “transdiagnostic” theory and treatment. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 41(5), 509–528.
  • Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
  • Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
  • Neff, K. D. (2011). Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind. William Morrow.
  • Treasure, J., Smith, G., & Crane, A. (2017). Skills-Based Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder: The New Maudsley Method. Routledge.
  • Waller, G., Cordery, H., Corstorphine, E., et al. (2007). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Eating Disorders: A Comprehensive Treatment Guide. Cambridge University Press.
  • National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). Eating Disorder Education and Recovery Resources.
  • National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Eating Disorders Statistics.