Hi Lesley, I am a clinician and researcher in the field of eating disorders and meet this a lot. I'm attaching one of those articles that you mention, showing that the 'voice' is really a problem.

I have found that teaching the person to talk back and argue against the 'voices' can be helpful, as is often done with automatic thoughts in CBT. For example a 14 year old boy with severe anorexia nervosa told me that every time he ate, 'voices' would tell him that he is fat, didn't need to eat etc. We sat together and made notes about how his healthy voice could answer the ED voice (e.g. you are trying to keep me in this horrible illness, everybody tells me I'm thin so you must be lying, I need to eat to be healthy, go back to school, eat with my friends, etc). Then he practiced saying these things out loud but he sounded unconvinced and spoke really softly so I helped him to say them convincingly and even shout out his statements, which was very difficult for him. It empowered him and helped a lot and he recovered.

Hi Lesley, I'm a family therapist and I used to do a lot of work in this area. One model that would fit well with what you are saying is Narrative therapy. One book written on this approach applied to eating disorders is Biting the hand that starves you, by Maisel, Epston and Borden. I lent it to a parent recently who found it useful in changing how she spoke with her daughter, good luck Alex

Hi Lesley!

I’m not sure if you’re aiming to look at any specifik ED or all sorts? I’m a cognitive therapist working in an specialist obesity clinic where I encounter many patients who suffers from Binge eating of different degree. To add to what others have suggested here above, I have found ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) including mindfulness and sometimes meditation, to be a useful approach where regular CBT sometimes is insufficient. The thing with ACT (explained very briefly) is that you don't actually have to fight and overcome ”the voice” but instead learn to accept it and work on ”detaching” yourself from it so that you can go on and do your thing and live your life regardless what your constant stream of thoughts and voices are telling you. 

Here’s an article about ACT and Anorexia:

https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.proxy.kib.ki.se/pubmed/27473046

and one on mindfulness-based interventions, including ACT and Binge eating

https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.proxy.kib.ki.se/pubmed/25417199

Good luck! /Anne

Hello Anne thankyou...I do know about ACT, and I suppose what I'm trying to see is what models are used and so this is very helpful

Hello Rachel and Alex

thankyou for your replies, they are very helpful. I will follow up the articles etc and if its ok get back to you? I had thought about doing interviews with therapists in this area. If you would be happy to talk with me or say  more about what you do and how you do it Id be very grateful.

thankyou to you all for your replies

Lesley

Hello Ann

I am unable to access the articles via the link as it is asking for log in details. Please could you send as a file doc? thankyou