Lily was referred to me when she was 12 years old. She was struggling in school with many friendship issues and her body image. Lily had also stopped eating. Lily’s older brother was battling cancer at the time and was having a lot of time off school with hospital visits. I worked with Lily on and off throughout her school life and we established that she was extremely worried about her brother but didn’t want to upset her parents. Lily also felt guilty that it was him who was ill instead of her and had started to hate herself.

We worked together to help Lily to have a dialogue with her parents to explain how she was feeling, which enabled them to support her better. We also did a lot of work around how Lily felt about herself and trying to see herself in a more positive light. By learning to be kinder to herself and realise that things were not her fault or couldn’t be fixed, Lily’s self-esteem slowly started to come back. Lily is now at University Studying Law and thriving.