How Things Are Different at Every Body Counseling
Eating disorder treatment has evolved over the past few decades, and even today, you’ll find that different clinicians and treatment centers subscribe to different healing modalities and philosophies.
It’s helpful for you to understand the perspective of your mental health professional’s approach before you begin treatment to make sure your goals and values are aligned!
Here’s how we do things at Every Body Counseling and what you can expect from working with us.
How We Approach ED Treatment:
Our goal is full recovery
Here at Every Body Counseling, we strive for full recovery from eating disorders—not management of symptoms or learning to “live with” disordered eating and body image issues.
We believe that you can make peace with food and your body and arrive at a place where thoughts of eating, dieting, health, and your body don’t consume every waking moment. This is possible, and it is possible for YOU. We can help you reach this goal.
We believe restriction is at the base of all types of eating disorders, including Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia Nervosa. Therefore, we use the Intuitive Eating philosophy where there are no “bad” foods and all foods are allowed. This is essential to healing from ED, both mentally and physically.
Weight loss or “management” is not a goal
We won’t help you change the number on the scale but we will help you change the way you think about and treat your body.
The pursuit of weight loss (or even weight management) keeps ED alive, and we do not believe that weight is an indicator of health. Instead, we strive for body neutrality and teach Health at Every Size, a mindset that disconnects weight and size from health and instead, allows you to make peace with and live in your body as it is right now.
We believe in addressing all aspects and contributing factors of ED
Eating disorders develop for many reasons. Our approach involves first identifying and acknowledging why your eating disorder first showed up and why it has stuck around. We then work with you to challenge the messages your eating disorder is sending you. Next, we work together to replace the disordered behaviors with techniques rooted in mindfulness. Finally, it is essential that we work to distinguish the difference between your values and those that ED has forced upon you.
We believe recovery is a team effort
To best serve our clients, we work in collaboration with other ED professionals in our home community and around the US. We also work in conjunction with your MD, RD, and all other members of your treatment team to provide you with the best, most comprehensive care possible.
Your value is not defined by a number on a scale. If you are ready to leave ED behind and our approach resonates with you, learn more about how we can help here.