What to expect when working with a Synergos counselor specializing in treating disordered eating, eating disorders, and body image concerns...
Diet culture, the predominant viewpoint towards health and body size in our culture, normalizes and perpetuates the negative relationships so many of us have with food and/or our bodies. A Synergos therapist with specialization in treating disordered eating and body image concerns will utilize principles from Intuitive Eating (IE) and Health At Every Size (HAES), both expanded on below, to challenge this way of thinking and motivate behavioral change that reinforces it.
Your therapist will focus on helping you heal your relationship with food and your body via exploration of your experience in diet culture, debunking myths perpetuated by the weight-centric focus of health, informing you of social determinants of health, and challenging the strong messages surrounding thinness and moral virtue. This might look like increasing your awareness of how diet culture has impacted you and your beliefs. Behaviorally, this might include gradual exposure to a larger variety of foods, eating foods with unconditional permission, and resisting those behaviors that you have been led to believe will improve your mental health and well-being but only worsen it. This also highlights that your therapist will focus on you and your health holistically, which often means addressing symptoms that may feel unrelated but are actually interconnected with eating and body image concerns. These can present as anxiety, depression, and trauma disorders. A Synergos therapist will understand and help you recognize how body image and eating concerns can often be a symptom of these other areas of concern.
We may recommend that clients with eating concerns work alongside a dietitian at the same time as their work with an eating disorder trained counselor because the work you are doing with one provider complements the work you are doing with the other provider. This recommendation also supports our holistic care approach. For instance, if your dietitian recommends a meal plan or food exposure that may feel daunting, your counselor will be able to help you process possible distress and build the coping strategies necessary to follow through on this goal. By waiting to be able to start services with both providers at the same time, it ensures you will have the proper level of support needed to be successful.
What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is an evidenced-based, mind-body health approach, created by two
dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995.
What is Diet Culture?
Dietitian Christy Harrison defines diet culture as:
Your therapist will focus on helping you heal your relationship with food and your body via exploration of your experience in diet culture, debunking myths perpetuated by the weight-centric focus of health, informing you of social determinants of health, and challenging the strong messages surrounding thinness and moral virtue. This might look like increasing your awareness of how diet culture has impacted you and your beliefs. Behaviorally, this might include gradual exposure to a larger variety of foods, eating foods with unconditional permission, and resisting those behaviors that you have been led to believe will improve your mental health and well-being but only worsen it. This also highlights that your therapist will focus on you and your health holistically, which often means addressing symptoms that may feel unrelated but are actually interconnected with eating and body image concerns. These can present as anxiety, depression, and trauma disorders. A Synergos therapist will understand and help you recognize how body image and eating concerns can often be a symptom of these other areas of concern.
We may recommend that clients with eating concerns work alongside a dietitian at the same time as their work with an eating disorder trained counselor because the work you are doing with one provider complements the work you are doing with the other provider. This recommendation also supports our holistic care approach. For instance, if your dietitian recommends a meal plan or food exposure that may feel daunting, your counselor will be able to help you process possible distress and build the coping strategies necessary to follow through on this goal. By waiting to be able to start services with both providers at the same time, it ensures you will have the proper level of support needed to be successful.
What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is an evidenced-based, mind-body health approach, created by two
dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995.
- It is a weight-neutral model, meaning that it takes the focus of eating away from controlling one’s body weight or achieving intentional weight loss.
- This approach consists of ten principles that cover topics to improve attunement with internal hunger and fullness cues, assist in filtering out judgment and noise that stems from diet culture’s influence, and supports clients in identifying and responding to our body’s emotional and physical needs.
What is Diet Culture?
Dietitian Christy Harrison defines diet culture as:
- A system of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others.
- It is the predominant viewpoint towards health and body size in our culture.