They don't make you do anything. Counseling for eating disorders revolves around deconstructing your body image and building a foundation of confidence and other coping tools. Also included is probably some education on nutrition and the damage a disorder can cause to the body. Counseling is the first step to becoming healthier, stronger and happier.

Hi annoyb, I was a psychotherapist for 30 years. Around 1984 or so everyone started changing the title of therapist to counselor. There are many disciplines that do therapy or counseling. Psychologist, such as I, or Clinical Social Workers, or people with degrees in Counceling. Saying what would happen in counseling, or paychotherapy as I still call it depends on your therapist or counselor. There are many methods and the situation described by Gideon is certainly one. I always tended to look for "underlying causes or reasons" for whatever situation I was dealing with. Seems if you can get to the etiology or cause of the thing your dealing with you can better find a solution.

I was with a counselor for like 2 months. I am bulemic and will binge from time to time when I'm sad, feel better for a few minutes, and then feel a wave of disgust and self hatred. Then I will purge and proceed to starve myself for a few days or go excercise for a few hours...until the next time I feel sad or let down and I'll binge again. One of the most valuable things my counselor taught me was that when I get the urge to binge next time, I should slow down my thought processes and pay attention to the self talk (while I'm eating the food) and just listen to that. I tried it out and listened to my own internal voice when I was eating, I was thinking things like, "This will set me back, but I don't care, I need it." "I have no friends, no one who I need to impress so why not?" "I am so fucking lonely, I should be out having fun but I'm too ugly to be seen in public" That kind of thinking. I don't remember what else my shrink taught me. She for sure did not fix my problem, but that piece of advice, to listen to what you say while you do the things you do, stuck with me and it at least puts you a step closer toward control. I don't know if you were asking this question on your own behalf, but if you do have an eating disorder, a counselor can actually do you a lot of good because you can tell them all the weird eating problems you have and they won't get overly emotional like someone you love will, and they'll empathize and help you out.