Iatrogenic harm in eating disorder treatment: a lived experience-led call for epistemic justice and accountability

Description

Laurence Cobbaert wrote a 2026 letter on harm caused by eating disorder care itself. Talk therapy can ease eating disorders, but gain is not proof of safety. Harms from care are poorly defined and rarely tracked, the author argues. So no one can say how often harm and gain occur side by side. When patients report harm, staff may brush it off as resistance or poor insight. That dismissal can deepen the wound and block learning.

Harm also falls unevenly, the letter says. Care that ignores culture, body diversity, or social barriers can hurt marginalized patients in distinct ways. Cobbaert calls for tracking harms from the start in every study. Patient reports and open-ended checks should count as core data. People who lived the harm should help design care and define what repair means. Claims of proof, the author warns, must cover safety too.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13281351