Why recovery happens in relationship
When we think about eating disorders, we often think about food, weight, behaviours, and control. But beneath these visible symptoms lies something far more fundamental – the human need for safety, belonging, and connection.
Emerging research in neuroscience is helping us understand eating disorders not simply as individual illnesses, but as conditions deeply intertwined with the social brain. These networks in our nervous system help us to connect, interpret social cues, regulate emotions, and feel safe with others.
When we view eating disorders through this lens, treatment shifts. Recovery becomes less about correcting behaviours alone and more about restoring safety in relationships.
What is the “social brain”?
The social brain refers to interconnected neural systems involved in:
- Detecting threat and safety
- Processing social cues (facial expression, tone, belonging, rejection)
- Regulating emotions
- Forming and maintaining attachment
- Experiencing reward and connection
As human beings, we are biologically wired for connection. Our nervous systems constantly scan the environment asking “Am I safe? Do I belong? Am I accepted?”
When the social brain perceives safety, we can engage, think flexibly, digest food, and regulate emotion. When it perceives threat, particularly social threat, our system shifts into protection.
For many individuals with eating disorders, the nervous system is operating in a heightened state of social threat based on previous experiences in relationships.
Eating disorders as adaptive responses
From a social-neurobiological perspective, eating disorder behaviours often function as protective strategies.
Restriction, bingeing, purging, over-exercise, or rigid control can:
- Numb overwhelming emotion
- Reduce feelings of social exposure or shame
- Create a sense of predictability in socially uncertain environments
- Provide identity or belonging where connection feels fragile
- Regulate a nervous system stuck in hypervigilance
Social comparison, fear of judgment, perceived rejection, and internalised shame all activate threat systems in the brain. Over time, the eating disorder can become a way to manage these chronic stress responses.
This doesn’t mean eating disorders are “chosen”. It means they often develop as intelligent and responsive, albeit costly, adaptations to relational and emotional distress.
When we only target behaviour without understanding its regulatory function, we risk increasing threat rather than reducing it.
The role of attachment and trauma
Our early and ongoing relationships shape how our social brain develops.
Attachment experiences influence whether we expect others to be safe and responsive, or unpredictable and overwhelming. Trauma, particularly relational trauma, can sensitise the nervous system to cues of rejection or loss of control.
For some individuals, social situations may feel:
- Intensely exposing
- Sensory overwhelming
- Shame-inducing
- Unpredictable or unsafe
This is particularly important when considering neurodiversity. Autistic people, for example, may experience heightened sensory processing or social fatigue. A neuro-affirmative lens reminds us that differences in social processing are not deficits, but they may interact with eating disorder vulnerability in complex ways.
A one-size-fits-all approach to social connection can inadvertently increase overwhelm. Safety must come before expectation.
Why safety comes before change
If eating disorders are intertwined with the social brain, then recovery cannot simply be behavioural correction. It must begin with felt safety.
Safety in this context means:
- Predictability
- Emotional attunement
- Non-judgement
- Collaborative care
- Transparency
- Consistent boundaries
When the nervous system experiences safety, it becomes more flexible. Cognitive rigidity softens. Emotional tolerance increases. Digestive and metabolic systems stabilise. The capacity for reflection grows.
Without safety, the brain remains in protection.
This is why relational consistency, co-regulation, and therapeutic alliance are not “soft” elements of treatment, they are neurobiological necessities.
Co-regulation and community
Regulation does not happen in isolation.
Humans regulate through relationship. Tone of voice, eye contact, presence, and shared experience all shape our nervous system state.
In eating disorder treatment, this means:
- Therapy is not just technique, it is relational attunement
- Meal support is not just supervision, it is co-regulation in action
- Group spaces are not just psychoeducation, they are opportunities to experience safe belonging
- Family involvement is not optional, it is protective
Community plays a powerful role in healing the social brain. When individuals meet others who understand their experience, shame reduces. Isolation softens. Identity expands beyond the illness.
Belonging becomes part of recovery.
Rethinking “resistance”
When we understand the social brain, our interpretation of “resistance” changes.
What can appear as avoidance, rigidity, or disengagement may actually be a nervous system responding to perceived threat.
Instead of asking, “Why won’t they change?”
We begin asking, “Where does the system feel unsafe?”
This shift transforms care.
It moves us from confrontation to curiosity.
From compliance to collaboration.
From control to connection.
Integrating recovery into real life
If the social brain is shaped by real-world environments, recovery must also happen in real-world contexts.
Healing cannot be confined to a clinic room alone. It must extend into:
- Homes
- Families
- Peer relationships
- Everyday routines
- Work and education settings
Supporting individuals in their own environments allows us to address the very social triggers and challenges that activate the eating disorder. It helps the nervous system learn that connection can be safe, not threatening.
Recovery becomes integrated, not isolated.
A relational model of healing
Viewing eating disorders through the lens of the social brain reframes recovery.
It reminds us that:
- Eating disorders are not simply about food
- They are not failures of willpower
- They are not solved by information alone
They are deeply relational conditions, shaped by how the brain experiences safety, belonging, and connection.
And crucially, recovery also happens in relationship.
When people feel seen rather than judged, understood rather than corrected, supported rather than managed – their nervous systems begin to settle. From that place of safety, change becomes possible.
So, what does all of this mean?
Eating disorders are not just individual illnesses, they are deeply shaped by the social brain. Lasting recovery is built not only on nutritional and psychological intervention, but on safety, connection, and relational healing.
When we prioritise belonging alongside treatment, we create the conditions in which real and sustained recovery can take place.
We’re here to help
If you or someone you care about is struggling, get in touch with Orri’s team. We’re here to listen, advise, and offer a safe space for recovery.
