Eating Disorders (ED) are mental health conditions where people alter food intake in some way to help with weight gain, managing emotions or other situations. EDs are increasingly common in young people. They can cause both the young person and those around them significant distress. Talking therapies can help.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is a talking therapy that is becoming increasingly widely used within the NHS to help with a wide range of problems. CAT focuses on the relationships clients have with themselves and others around them. From CAT, we have developed Relational Intervention for Difficulties with Eating (RIDE), This is a brief talking therapy. The aim is to help the young person and those around them build an understanding of their difficulties. This will hopefully mean others can support them with their disordered eating.

The aim of the study is to examine the feasibility (is it possible to conduct a study about this intervention?) and acceptability (do participants find the therapy is helpful and makes sense to them?) of RIDE. As a secondary aim, the study will look at whether RIDE shows preliminary evidence for positive change on relevant measures of psychological difficulties (e.g. distress, how young people feel about themselves and others).

The study will aim to recruit nine young people (aged between 14-25) with ED. Participants must be under the care of an ED service. They will attend 8 appointments (3 assessment, 5 therapy) either at their home, University of Manchester campus or a health service clinic. A video conferencing platform (e.g. Zoom, Teams) can be used if required. Participants will complete questionnaires before, during and after therapy.

The findings will help to develop the therapy and improve further testing in larger studies. If successful, RIDE could be available as a treatment for young people.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants will be between the ages of 14 - 25 years.
• Participants will be under the care of a mental health team and have a clinician allocated to them within local ED Services.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Young people will be excluded if they are currently receiving alternative one-to-one psychological therapy (not including family interventions or skill-based groups).
• Young people will be excluded if they have a moderate to severe intellectual disability which would impair their ability to participate without considerable adaptations being made to the intervention, as judged by the young person or the clinical team.
• Young people will be excluded if they have inadequate English-language speaking skills due to limitations in their ability to engage with talking therapies in the English language.
• Young people will be excluded if they are judged at high risk of harm to themselves, operationalised as having current suicidal thoughts with a high intent or active plan to end their life. This includes individuals who are deemed at risk of harm to themselves by the clinical team due to a sustained trajectory of recent weight loss.

Given the small scale of the project there is no plan to make data available via online repositories. Anonymised data may be made available to other researchers on reasonable request.