This paper attempts to identify and to describe the implicit understanding of mind and mental life at work across an adolescent inpatient eating disorder ward, where the author worked as a healthcare assistant for 12 weeks. It does so by providing an account of ‘prompts’ employed by hospital staff during mealtimes on the ward. The vision of mental illness implied by these ‘prompts’ is described as supporting a paradigm of mental life consistent with the assumptions of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). An account of supervising mealtimes while employing language consistent with a psychodynamic model of mind is briefly offered as an alternative, before some of the benefits and drawbacks of both paradigms are outlined.