Paula Watson

I'm a practitioner psychologist with over 21 years experience helping people develop a healthier relationship with food, exercise and their bodies.

My expertise includes:
- Health behaviour change
- Disordered eating
- Exercise problems (e.g., dependence, anxiety)
- Weight management psychology

My work fills what I believe is a huge gap in NHS & local authority weight management prevention and treatment. That is - the need to address the psychology underlying why people diet, why people feel dissatisfied with their bodies and why people struggle with exercise.

Sadly the commercial diet and fitness industries have done (and continue to do) immense damage to a large sector of our population. Through 1-to-1 Cognitive Behaviour Therapy I help people "undo" these unhelpful habits and work towards healthier, more enjoyable and more sustainable weight-related behaviours.

The majority of my clients are adults who have been suffering in silence for decades, yet on the outside their behaviour is so "normalised" they feel ashamed for needing psychological support.

The behaviours I'm talking about? Yo-yo dieting, emotional eating, losing weight fast for weddings, events, holidays, tracking their calories, macros, steps 24-7, and constantly beating themselves up for not doing well enough. For some individuals this has become more serious and involves dietary restriction, binging, purging, or compensatory exercise behaviours.

I'm passionate about promoting a healthy and sustainable approach to weight management and helping people enjoy eating and movement. Having worked within higher education for 18+ years prior to moving into independent practice, I have extensive public speaking experience, and I enjoy a critical debate as a podcast guest. I've also appeared on TV and radio, have over 45 peer-reviewed research publications, have co-authored The Applied Sport and Exercise Practitioner, and have my own YouTube channel (@DrPaulaWatson).

I have a PhD in health behaviour change (family-based childhood obesity management), and expertise in Self-Determination Theory, which is a motivation theory applicable in so many fields of life. I'm interested in opportunities to collaborate with multidisciplinary professionals to deliver psychologically informed weight management programmes, retreats or bespoke public-facing events. I also offer bespoke training for weight management professionals, both in communicating sensitively and in a way that motivates others, and in "self-practice, self-reflection", which involves working with practitioners on their own eating and physical activity behaviours as a way of enhancing their delivery and empathy skills with their own clients.