Bariatric Surgery Pathway – Psychological Resources

Below are suggested readings for different experiences or areas of difficulty you may encounter. At the end of the list is a summary of some local services you may find helpful. Please do let us know if you come across anything else that you find helpful that we can add to this!

Recommended for everyone going through the bariatric surgery pathway:

• Denise Ratcliffe (2008). Living with Bariatric Surgery: Managing your mind and your weight.

Changing relationship with eating:

• Denise Ratcliffe. Understanding and managing emotional eating: A psychological skills workbook

• Alyssa Snow Callahan (2020). The Mindful Eating Journal: Prompts and Practices to Restore Your Relationship with Food.

• Joseph Ciarrochi, Russ Harris & Ann Bailey (2015). The Weight Escape: Stop fad dieting, start losing weight and reshape your life using cutting-edge psychology.

Becoming more aware and comfortable with your emotions:

• Ronald Frederick (2009). Living like you mean it: Using the wisdom and power of your emotions to get the life you really want.

Self compassion:

• Audio and then written/guided practices to develop self-compassion freely available on this website (female voice):

https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#guided-meditations

• Further guided audio exercises available here (male voice):

https://balancedminds.com/compassion-focused-therapy-audio/

• Kenneth Goss (2011). The Compassionate Mind Aproach to Beating Overeating (Overcoming): Series editor, Paul Gilbert (Compassion Focused Therapy)

• Jean Fain (2011). The Self-Compassion Diet: A Step-by-step program to lose weight with loving kindness.

Self confidence / self-compassion

• Russ Harris (2011). The Confidence Gap: From fear to freedom.

• Mary Welford (2012). The Compassionate Mind Approach to building self-confidence.

Living with Pain:

• Vidyamala Burch (2008). Living well with pain and illness: The mindful way to free yourself from suffering.

• Joanne Dahl (2006). Living beyond your pain: Using acceptance and commitment therapy to ease chronic pain.

Sleep hygiene:

• Information leaflet here:

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/~/media/CCI/Mental-Health-Professionals/Sleep/Sleep---Information-Sheets/Sleep-Information-Sheet---04---Sleep-Hygiene.pdf

Mood / Anxiety:

• Russ Harris (2008). The Happiness Trap: Stop struggling, start living.

– An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy based approach; relevant for difficulties with anxiety or low mood.

• Dennis Tirch (2012). The Compassionate Mind Approach to Overcoming Anxiety

• Based on Compassion Focused Therapy; see also others in the Compassionate Mind series

• Helen Kennerley (2014). Overcoming Anxiety: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques.

• Chris Williams (2014). Overcoming Depression and Low Mood: A five areas approach.

• This and the above book apply a cognitive behavioural therapy approach.

Overcoming binge/overeating:

• Peter Cooper (2009). Overcoming Bulimia Nervosa and Binge-Eating: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques 

• Christopher Fairburn & Kelly Brownell (2013). Overcoming Binge Eating: The Proven Program to Learn Why You Binge and How You Can Stop

• Antonia Ryan (2020). Mindfulness for Binge Eating (Binge Eating, Diet & Weight Loss) 

• Kenneth Goss (2011). The Compassionate Mind Approach to Beating Overeating (Overcoming): Series editor, Paul Gilbert (Compassion Focused Therapy)