Holistic Therapy
Currently Serving all of California & Colorado via Telehealth
Therapy for Eating Disorder Recovery, Eating Issues, and Body Image
Let's nurture the healing of your relationship with food and your body.
Does the thought of eating cause you anxiety?
Do you wish you could avoid eating?
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Do you feel like you can’t control the amount you eat, and then you feel badly about it afterwards?
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Do you feel like you are stuck in a cycle of restriction and binging, and can’t find your way out?
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Do you feel the need to exercise often in order to feel okay about eating?
What if I told you that…...your eating disorder evolved as a mechanism to protect you?
Despite the nuances, complexities, and diversities of ED’s, one thing remains the same for each case: The ED came as a way to protect you and has allowed you to make it this far. There is nothing wrong with you. You’ve done the best you can with the resources you had in very challenging situations.
I honor your Eating Disorder for bringing you this far. Now we can explore new avenues that will help you meet your emotional needs and begin to heal your relationship with food and your body.
My Approach
Eating disorders are complex, as they are survival strategies both for regulating affect (intense feelings), as well as maintaining connection with others and belonging. The ED strategies, although harmful in the long-term, have helped you survive, making the thought of healing understandably both desirable and threatening. In working with Eating Disorders, we look at what you are wanting for yourself in your relationship with food and your body, as well as how the Eating Disorder has served to protect you. In our work together, we won't work against the ED - instead we work with it. We lean into what needs the Eating Disorder has been working to provide you with and what is has been protecting you from, and how to help you get those needs met in ways that are supportive to an enjoyable and healthy relationship with your body and food.
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Eating Disorders are symptoms of trauma - relational trauma as well as shock trauma. Because of this, I use NARM (the NeuroAffective Relational Model) to support the gentle healing of the trauma that is underlying the Eating Disorder. As the trauma heals, the need for the protection of the Eating Disorder starts to decrease, allowing more space to let go of the ED and opportunity to come into a new relationship with your body and food.
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I treat Body Dysmorphia, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), Eating Disorder NOS, Exercise Bulimia, as well as disordered eating and body image issues.
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Click the link above to listen to my interview on the Body Justice Podcast with Allyson Ford, where we discuss the connection between developmental trauma and Eating Disorders.
From our work together, you can:
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Gain insight into the needs that the ED symptoms are meeting (you wouldn’t use them if they weren’t serving you in some way)
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Learn tools to meet those needs in ways that support your overall growth and healing.
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Heal the wounds and beliefs that the ED is protecting.
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Gently come into contact with the gift of your body.
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Begin to feel at peace with food.