Psychologist Follow-up in Bariatric Surgery

Why is a pre-operative psychologist consultation performed?

Obesity is a serious health problem and affects people physically, psychologically, and socially. For this reason, it is important for us to treat our valued patients holistically and for you to feel healthy in every aspect.

By administering some psychological tests to you before the consultation, we determine whether you have any psychological disorders and assess whether you are mentally ready for the surgery. These tests also show us how anxious you are. In this way, our Psychologist determines your anxiety/worry level, applies some breathing exercises and relaxation techniques to patients with high anxiety levels, and ensures their relaxation.

During the consultation, in addition to alleviating surgery anxiety, gaining “psychological awareness” is one of the goals of the Psychologist consultation.

• Identifying the psychological reasons underlying negative eating behaviors,
• The presence of any psychological condition causing obesity (trauma, grief, eating disorders),
• The psychological and social difficulties created by obesity in the person’s life

are revealed to provide psychological awareness, and by making you realize the harms of weight and unhealthy eating, you are helped to get rid of dysfunctional thoughts towards eating and move away from the “obese brain”. If it is determined during the psychological awareness process that there is a psychological reason underlying your negative (unhealthy) eating behavior, you may have an “eating disorder”.

• Emotional eating
• Night eating syndrome
• Binge eating disorder
• Bulimia nervosa (binge-purge)

These are among the most common eating disorders seen in patients experiencing obesity problems. Although these disorders can occur mostly after a psychological trauma as well as genetic and environmental factors, they can also emerge in people with depression and anxiety disorders. Our psychologist makes this determination during the consultation, informs you, and tells you whether you need psychological support after the surgery. Not ignoring this and receiving psychological support during your strict diet process after surgery will prevent you from regaining weight after reaching your ideal weight and will enable you to establish a healthy relationship with food.

Should I receive post-operative psychological support?

Our pre-operative Psychologist makes the aforementioned determinations and states who needs psychological support after the surgery. If you were also told so, be sure to make an appointment. During the weight loss process;

• Lack of impulse control,
• Inability to self-regulate,
• Lack of motivation,
• Individuals experiencing problems with a history of psychopathology (post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, eating disorders) may have difficulty maintaining a diet and may return to their old eating behaviors after reaching their ideal weight. Receiving psychologist support to prevent these will be one of the most important investments you make in yourself in your new life.