Eating Disorders (free)
I have just opened a new online therapy group for women (max 8 participants) who would like to heal their relationship with food & body as well as transform co-dependency issues. Please email me for more info.
"The importance one gives to food masks what is underneath;
I am interested in understanding what is expressed on the surface yet felt beneath”
Whether people know it or not, there is always a reason in having an eating disorder, an intention that serves as the foundation for it all. Eating disorders often develop as a subconscious way of self-medicating, a coping mechanism that may help hinder feeling or working through present and/or past pain that one does not have ability or emotional awareness to effectively process yet. It is through an established therapeutic relationship we could discover what’s underneath the eating disorder, and expand, through modelling, the window of tolerance. Therefore, the individual can gain more capacity to feel and process the uncomfortable feelings, and ultimately HEAL.
Common Denominators of Eating Disorders:
Shame / Low Self Esteem (grandiosity): Shame often begins to develop at a young age, usually in childhood or adolescence; it can be a feeling related to shame about oneself or a family of origin. For example, families who were, in their view, not good enough, not caring enough, (i.e. a neglectful mother or a father who pressured for achievements and was emotionally and/or physically abusive). An individual on the receiving end of this behaviour very often tries to repress or avoid the feeling of shame due to the painful nature and inability to properly advocate for him/herself.
Abandonment & Loneliness: A person may develop an extreme relationship to eating, whether in excess/binge or restraint; this may root from past/present traumas such as having pour attachment styles, unhealthy/toxic relationships in life, and more. For example, an individual may have grown up in a family with a narcissist parent that emotionally abandoned them; an individual growing up in such an environment often feels a black hole in themselves, leading to the sensation or desire to fill it with something. Often times, the emotional response of fulfillment is another form of coping, and/or another form of avoiding healthily processing the actual issue at hand. Coping by eating and drinking can be misdirected desire, the need is for something different.
Alexithymia: Alexithymia is when an individual has difficulty identifying and expressing their emotions. Often, they are out of touch with their feelings and do not have the emotional vocabulary or cognitive awareness to be able to connect and name their internal processing/experiences.
Case Conceptuzlisation
An individual comes from a family where feelings were not empathized, recognised, dealt with, responded to, which creates an anxious attachment pattern where the client feels a lack of support and develops feelings of distrust and uneasiness towards those that surround her.
What do we do about it?
Read More: https://mindfulcounseling.info/common-denominators-of-eating-disorders.html
Below you will find a Free Program on how to heal from Eating Disorders
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4