Helen Brown was referred by her General Practitioner to the Department of Family Psychiatry with a history of weight loss accompanied by binge eating and self-induced vomiting. Just over one year prior to the referral, she began to diet, after being teased by some school friends about being overweight. The diet became increasingly restrictive and after nine months she was diagnosed by her GP as suffering from anorexia nervosa. She was aged 16 years at the time of the referral and had lost approximately two stones in weight.