The Blog
Categories
5 Best Practice Tips for Treating Clients with Eating Disorders
I recently put on a training where I taught therapists who don’t specialize in eating disorders how to work with clients struggling with eating disorders and body image issues. At the end of the training, I summarized some key takeaways with a list of “Do’s and Don’ts”. Many clinicians shared that this was super helpful for them! I wanted to compile the list here for other therapists who may be interested in treating eating disorders. Presenting! My top 5 best practice tips for treating clients with eating disorders!
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead”
Spoiler alert: this is a terrible plan. But it’s a common refrain you hear on college campuses, in tech start ups with 80 hour work weeks, among new parents, etc. It’s said half in jest, but with an element of- eh, rest isn’t that important. People have so many other demands, this can feel like the easiest one to let up on. The problem is that lack of (or irregular/fragmented) sleep is one of the single best predictors for developing a mental health disorder. You are way more vulnerable to conditions like depression, anxiety and chronic burnout when you’re sleep deprived. Every organ in your body operates on a circadian rhythm, every hormone is regulated by our sleep/wake cycles. So while we think we can push through the lack of sleep, the price we pay is often steeper than people realize.
Orville Peck, mental health & me
If we in the mental health field know how to help people feel their feelings in a healthy way, i.e. a way that helps prevent the development of mental illness, why do the cultural norms around feeling emotions require the exact opposite? For example, have you ever felt ashamed for crying when you were sad? Embarrassed for being too excited or giddy? Foolish for earnestly trying something new and, like any beginner, sucking? Have you ever told someone you were doing really well, but in reality you felt terrible? Of course you have! Most of us have.
What causes eating disorders?
While we think of eating disorders as a modern phenomena– and at the explosive rates we see them today they certainly are– they are also brain based diseases that existed long before anyone considered being thin aspirational. Remember, food scarcity was the problem for most of human existence, so a beautiful person was historically a visibly well fed person.