About Therapy

Do you know the definition of courage?

For me, it is the quiet whisper located in the deepest part of your being that knows something is not quite right. Yet with fear still pounding in your heart, you take a step away from the familiar and walk toward someone and something unfamiliar. That’s courage.

Courage is daring to hope again.

Courage is reaching out to a stranger hoping your deepest, darkest fears and secrets won’t be “too much” for them to handle.

Courage is crying out for help and risking rejection when the pain becomes more than you can bear.

Courage is entrusting your despair with someone who will help you find your voice and validate your experiences… who will allow you, with dignity, to feel all the ugliness and pain you need to express in order to finally and fully be heard and valued.

Courage is, quite possibly, the dawning of a new understanding that your unexplainable behavior with food is actually providing crucial, critical clues as to how to listen to your self-deprived soul.

Whenever a new client first walks into my office…

… I can feel their nerves and uncertainty, and my heart immediately goes out to these brave folks. I so admire their courage to admit that their lives are not working the way they want them to work.

I can almost hear their thoughts:

“How will she be able to help me? My issues are too big. My struggles are too much.”
“What if I’m the hopeless case that can’t get past my food binges?”
“What if she thinks I am actually crazy?”
“I can’t wait to get this over with, so I can relax at home with food and TV. I will somehow NOT throw up tonight.”
“If she thinks I’m going to stop dieting, she has another think coming. I will not let her make me fat!”

And on it goes…

For the most part, the common thread is fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of never being able to reclaim self-compassion in a rampant diet culture that feeds your body shame with messages that you are not acceptable as you are. Fear of facing all the emotions that make you human. Fear of dealing with your “moods” without your “foods.”

Making sense of the madness…

I know that a lot of thoughts and behaviors associated with eating disorders don’t seem to make sense. But the truth is… they actually DO make sense. They serve a valuable, albeit unhealthy, purpose in your life right now.

Emma* is 22 and fresh out of college working her first ‘real’ job. After four years of college and a business degree, she still wasn’t sure what to do with her life. Her future was in front of her, which was exciting and terrifying at the same time. She was smart, attractive, and well-liked. It might be said she had the world on a string! So why could she hardly wait to get to her apartment, rip open the 2 lb. bag of peanut M&M’s, and zone out watching TV? But it didn’t stop there. Next came the pastries. And then the Doritos… and then the ice cream. And then the bathroom. The toilet, to be specific.

Sherry* is 33 and works in the health field. She is so weary of checking her chin and body for extra fat the second she gets up in the morning. She is so tired of worrying about whether she is gaining weight. All she wants is to eat when she is hungry and not feel the need to be rebellious and have as much as she wants whenever she wants. Her body-checking is getting out of hand. She also feels her face is too fat and chubby, and no one takes her seriously at work. She is always filled with regrets and can’t figure out why. She has considered that some of her problems might be related to growing up with an alcoholic mother who neglected her, but she figured she was just blowing that out of proportion.

Nicole* is 27 and has been pursuing her dream to be a professional dancer. Her fear of getting fat has taken over her mind. Her obsession with being perfect is intense… “I should be taller. I should be skinnier. My arms should be smaller. My stomach isn’t flat. What is wrong with me? I look huge and disgusting.” Nicole is 5’9” and is skin and bones. She has lost her true self and fears the idea of getting better. What good is getting better if it is only going to make me fat?

None of this seems odd to me.

In fact, it represents a real basic human desire to make herself feel better. Nothing wrong with wanting to feel better! That’s actually a good thing.

But you wouldn’t put an ice cream cone on a broken leg to heal that wound, and it doesn’t make any more sense to regularly binge to find emotional healing. It just doesn’t work in the long term.

I find it necessary, therapeutic, and healing to take clients on their very own, unique emotional journeys. Emotional vomits, if you will. Let’s find out what the bingeing is trying to say to you. What the purging is expressing.

Your wounded inner soul is trying desperately to get your own attention, and resisting listening is keeping you a prisoner in your eating disorder.

And what about restricting behaviors?

Same issues, different presentation.

Emotional and food restricting don’t work and eventually will lead to bingeing. Food restricting doesn’t just deplete your body, but it shrinks your world.

Food restricting minimizes your existence. It validates your belief that you are of no value. Instead, it teaches you that your value is tied to a number on a scale and a number on your clothes. It diminishes your heart, mind, and soul.

Your true authentic self is buried in a world that has you convinced that your body is your identity. Your false self is in control, and together we will uncover your true self. All the glorious wonderful parts of what make you, YOU. Your body, your mind, your heart, and your soul.

What does therapy look like?

Our therapy work will help you figure that out and finally recover who you really are. How? By delving into your own hurts, losses, and brokenness, and finding your way back to accepting yourself, warts and all. I liken our work to Snorkeling and Deep-Sea diving.

Snorkeling will be the work that skims the surface while starting to look deeper, the day-to-day challenges that need clarity while learning real life coping skills.

I believe in the power of at-home tasks (ok, yes… homework!) to relearn coping strategies that have proven real life results. You will learn how your negative, distorted thoughts are affecting your mood, which leads to your undesirable behaviors. And you will learn how to become a detective of your own mind, finding the clues that are making you feel the way you do, challenging them, and changing them to feel more in control of your emotional responses.

Deep-Sea diving explores the deeper underbelly of your feelings about yourself, where they came from, and whether they no longer serve you. We explore your core values, your dreams, your unexpressed desires.

WE connect to your soul and find the significance in your life.

I’m a big fan of Narrative Repair work (you might call it structured journaling and/or free-flowing journaling), as well as creative art expression, identifying your place in this diet culture, body shaming and outer directed, people-pleasing world that devalues your true self.

As an EDIT™ II Certified Eating Disorder Treatment Clinician, I will take your hand and help you travel through your hard-hitting emotional work.

Together, you will learn the 5 principles (taught via weekly handouts and exercises) so vital to recovery: Love Your Self, Be True To Your Self, Express Your Self, Give to Your Self, and Believe in Your Self.

This is where courage comes in…

The process is not without tears. The process is not without fear.

But the process will be illuminating. It will be empowering.

While the framework for recovering from eating disorders is steeped in validated research methods and real-life usable strategies, your path forward will be unique to you.

It will be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of your life, as you begin to allow your voice to be heard, not just to others… but to yourself.

*Names changed to preserve client confidentiality.