London Eating Disorders Conference report

I had a great time at the 7th London International Conference on Eating Disorders last week. As usual, a wonderfully diverse and stimulating programme, very well organised by Rachel Bryant Waugh, Bryan Lask and their hardworking team of volunteers.

One of the highlights for me were Tuesday morning's plenary session on 'Coercion, collaboration and choice', with presentations by Philip Graham, Jacinta Tan and Josie Geller. And of course, Kelly Vitousek's workshop entitled 'Alienating patients from the anorexic self' considered the pros and cons of using the technique of 'externalising' with patients with anorexia. Whenever I hear Kelly speak I come away with my head buzzing with excitement and so many new ideas.

There was quite a bit of media coverage of the conference, particularly about Bryan Lask and colleagues' neuroimaging work. Bryan was on 'All in the Mind' on Radio 4 last week talking about this and other issues in eating disorders. The work was also mentioned in the Independent Newspaper.