Conducting research within an eating disorders unit (EDU): A reflection on the obstacles, advantages and comparison to working with other client groups

The aim of this article is to provide professionals and others starting out in their careers in research with some insight into the obstacles involved in conducting research in an EDU, and some suggestions of how to overcome them, based upon our own experiences. To us, the main challenges were of a more personal nature in that this client group remains very close to ourselves and to our lives. Furthermore, it was very interesting to reflect upon the presence of perfectionism in this client group and how there was an inherent competitiveness within this client group (e.g. to be the 'perfect anorexic'). We felt that there were many parallels with our own pursuit of gaining a place on clinical training. This is something that we have spent a significant amount of time considering within supervision. As well as this, we hope it is useful to draw comparisons with conducting research within different environments, as this highlights the need for the researcher to be adaptable to working within different settings, and altering techniques to suit the individual client groups.