Eating Disorder Training for Therapists and Body Image Training for Therapists

We believe that eating disorder behaviors are a strategy, not a pathology.

And that mainstream approaches to treating eating disorders and body image concerns just don’t cut it.

At Reclaim Therapy we serve folks with enduring eating disorders and intense hatred toward, and shame about, their bodies.

Folks who have been in and out of treatment and have tried everything to make peace with food and their body.

Folks who have seen a dozen (plus) therapists over the years, are frustrated with the process and the same old behavioral approaches to recovery that have been disappointing, ineffective and at times, straight up harmful.

We know you know, but just in case…You can’t think your way out of an eating disorder or body-shame.

Yes, heady explorations and cognitive understandings of the way diet-culture, societal pressures and individual trauma histories have impacted relationship with food and body are important.

And.

Healing happens when strategies of the eating disorder are not only understood, but felt. When roots of suffering are seen, held and cared for. When stories of pain behind methods of disconnection are invited into the room, honored and tended to. When permission to divest from our dieting obsessed culture is given. When glimmers of safety in the body start to be felt.

When the body feels safe enough to be in the here and now, lived in, not disconnected from or gazed at.

How do we get there?

• Understanding that healing happens in relationship. And, upholding our relationships with our clients first, and foremost.

• Solid case conceptualization. Not just once, but again and again, over time. Looking at the intersections of early attachment, neurodevelopment, adaptive information processing and somatics helps us begin to understand the how’s and why’s of the way someone has survived in the world the way that they have.

• Trauma focused, bottom up treatments like EMDR, Parts Work and Somatic Interventions.

• Embracing our messy, humanness and showing up authentically and learning alongside our clients. This work invites us to check our egos at the door and trust our guts. Unlearning much of what we’ve been taught as therapists.