Therapy for Eating Disorders/Disordered Eating and Body Image
Would you like food or your body to take up less brainspace?
You might find yourself ruminating about what you just ate or what you are going to eat later that day, feel a loss of control around food, or feel guilt when nourishing yourself. Maybe you would like to create a more joyful and fluid relationship with movement.
I believe in building a connection to your body that is built on intuition, trust, flexibility, and compassion.
I work with clients to improve their relationship with food and their body through a Health at Every Size (HAES), Intuitive Eating/Anti-diet approach, dismantling messages internalized by diet culture and re-aligning with your values. Our body can be the doorway into the present moment and feelings of safety, pleasure, connection AND often before we can get to the embodiment that allows us to truly feel alive and present with those feelings we have to grieve and process the life experiences in our body that caused pain, disconnection, and a lack of safety (emotional, relational, physical). We can’t selectively numb emotions or sensations but when in genuine and safe connection with others (ie. the therapeutic relationship) we can learn to tolerate the discomfort of the scary ones and with that making space for more joy, resilience and trust in ourselves.
I have experience working at the partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient levels of care an eating disorder treatment center (treating anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, orthorexia, ARFID, and OSFED) in addition to outpatient. I use evidence based modalities to support clients in understanding the role the disordered eating has played for them, societal, environmental and interpersonal factors that maintain it, while challenging the unwanted behaviors and fostering new ways of relating to food and your body. I am happy to collaborate with dietitians and other members of your treatment team and provide referrals to supporting HAES clinicians when needed.
Ready to create sustainable change in your relationship with food, exercise and your body!?
negative/critical thoughts about one’s body and self
rigidity and rules around food and exercise
chronic or yo-yo dieting
preoccupations with “healthy eating”
binging, purging, restriction of food, compulsive exercise
withdrawal from loved ones
body checking behaviors such as weighing oneself, mirror checking etc
avoidance of body and food related events such as eating out or being in a bathing suit
body dysmorphia
struggling to take days off from exercise
fear, guilt, shame, and anxiety around eating
self-esteem struggles
black and white thinking
loneliness, isolation, irritability, and disconnection
lack of connection to one’s body
Together we can find freedom from…
I believe you don’t need to be diagnosed with an eating disorder to benefit from exploring your relationship with food and your body. In a society with strong anti-fat bias, fixation on appearance and self-objectification, it can be hard to feel connected and safe in your body.
Find Your Freedom!
What is Health At Every Size?
The Health At Every Size® Principles are:
1. Weight Inclusivity: Accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes and reject the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights.
2. Health Enhancement: Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and other needs.
3. Respectful Care: Acknowledge our biases, and work to end weight discrimination, weight stigma, and weight bias. Provide information and services from an understanding that socio-economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities.
4. Eating for Well-being: Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control.
5. Life-Enhancing Movement: Support physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities, and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose
Learn more at The Association for Size Diversity And Health
By approaching your relationship with food and your body through the lens guided by the principles above, we are able to understand that health is much more complex than your body size, shape, or labels asserted by diet culture on food we consume. Health is impacted by social variables like racism, classism, ablism, homophobia, fatphobia/weight stigma, and sexism. All bodies deserve respect, care and love.
Eating Disorder Blog Posts
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How to Support a Loved One with an Eating Disorder
Maybe you have known you haven’t had the best relationship with food and your body but are hesitant to take action steps to shift that relationship. Maybe you know someone who seems to struggle with an eating disorder and are confused about why they struggle to make changes. There are many reasons. Here are a few possibilities:
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Barriers to Reaching Out for Help and Pursuing Eating Disorder Recovery
Maybe you have known you haven’t had the best relationship with food and your body but are hesitant to take action steps to shift that relationship. Maybe you know someone who seems to struggle with an eating disorder and are confused about why they struggle to make changes. There are many reasons. Here are a few possibilities:
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Understanding the Spectrum of Eating Disorders and Disordered Eating
Eating Disorders are complex mental illnesses that present in many ways. They are emotional disorders that involve a variety of associated behaviors. I hope to provide some basic starting points to foster greater understanding and empathy:
