The Importance of Psychology in Your Success
At 360 SURGERY, our practice in Melbourne understands the importance of working in a multidisciplinary team to support you for success throughout your weight loss journey. We work with an expert team of psychologists from Weight Management Psychology to help you get the best outcomes before and after surgery.
A preoperative psychosocial assessment, conducted by one of our qualified behavioural health clinicians with relevant specialised knowledge will be performed before your surgery.
Psychosocial evaluation is best conceptualised as a way to identify strengths and vulnerabilities and develop recommendations to enhance your surgical outcome after bariatric surgery. Because long-term outcomes are substantially influenced by your behaviours, it’s important to optimise things before bariatric surgery. Specifically, optimization will include an evaluation of psychosocial functioning, substance use, and maladaptive eating patterns – things that can get in the way of your success and need to be addressed. Your appointment will occur prior to your surgery. It is also recommended that you have at least one follow up session after surgery to address any barriers you may be experiencing and plan for optimum post-weight loss surgery results.
While your psychologist will ask certain questions, you can talk with them about whatever you feel will be most helpful for you. Our aim is to help you get the most out of this powerful tool for weight loss and turn your life around.
Common things our psychologists help patients with are:
- Overcoming emotional eating and desires for high calorie foods
- Talking to others about surgery and managing changing relationships with weight loss
- Successfully managing the changes in lifestyle and habits after surgery
- Acknowledging the changes your body makes after surgery (and addressing any remaining body image concerns), and,
- Enhancing mental wellbeing and reaching other important life goals
