Therapy for Eating Disorders
Are you tired of obsessing over food and worrying about how you look?
Has your anxiety around food started to negatively impact your social life?
Do you struggle with purging, bingeing, chronic dieting, or other unhealthy eating habits?
Maybe you wake up thinking about food and fretting about what you’ll eat each day.
Perhaps you struggle to get dressed because none of your clothes fit the way you want them to and you can’t stop agonizing over your body in the mirror. In the end, your obsession with food and your body could make it hard to focus and lead to reduced productivity at work or in school. Deep down, maybe you think to yourself: If I could just lose weight, I’d be happier and everything would be okay. As a result, you may be considering seeing a therapist who specializes in treating eating disorders.
Has your anxiety around food started to negatively impact your social life?
Do you struggle with purging, bingeing, chronic dieting, or other unhealthy eating habits?
Maybe you wake up thinking about food and fretting about what you’ll eat each day.
Perhaps you struggle to get dressed because none of your clothes fit the way you want them to and you can’t stop agonizing over your body in the mirror. In the end, your obsession with food and your body could make it hard to focus and lead to reduced productivity at work or in school. Deep down, maybe you think to yourself: If I could just lose weight, I’d be happier and everything would be okay. As a result, you may be considering seeing a therapist who specializes in treating eating disorders.
If you’re dealing with an eating disorder, going out and socializing could be hard for you. After all, the majority of everyday social interactions revolve around food. When friends invite you to dinner, perhaps you don’t know how to respond. You might end up cancelling lots of plans so that you don’t have to deal with the awkwardness of refusing food that’s offered to you. What’s more, you might want time alone so that you can purge or binge in privacy.
Over time, this kind of life can lead to loneliness and disconnection. You may feel distant from friends and family because of how much your eating disorder consumes you.
If you want to live a life that’s free from food obsession as well as body shame and self-criticism, we encourage you to connect with us. At Therapy for Women in Philadelphia, we specialize in empowering women to boost their self-image, recover from eating disorders, and cultivate healthier relationships with food and your body.
Eating disorders have been on the rise for decades, as women face increasing pressure to maintain a certain body type and are more likely to be objectified than men. Our culture is deeply fatphobic—so many people are shamed for how they look and judged if they don’t conform to societal notions of beauty. Part of the problem is that our culture equates health with body size, as if you can tell how healthy someone is just by looking at them. We also tend to think that everyone can be skinny if they just eat right and exercise.
Although we as a culture are starting to challenge these myths, we still have a long way to go. The body-positive moment has made incredible strides, but magazines, billboards, and Instagram are still dominated by unrealistic depictions of skinniness. Even if we know that these depictions are photoshopped or altered in some way, it’s still hard to feel good about how we look if we don’t see other body types and shapes being celebrated.
Teen girls today are more exposed to social media and the internet than any other generation, so they have to deal with unrealistic body standards very early in life. They face endless opportunities to scrutinize how they look and be subjected to judgment from anonymous strangers online. What’s more, the models and beauty influencers they look up to are not the average American teenage girl—they’re usually fully-grown adults who represent the most extreme levels of fitness and thinness.
This unhealthy comparison culture is the number-one driver of negative self-image among young women today, and it’s a huge reason eating disorders continue to afflict them. Therapy is a chance to step away from this comparison culture, challenge false beliefs about body size and weight, and learn to see yourself in a more positive and empowering light.
We are a health-at-every-size practice, which means that we are weight-neutral and anti-diet. Our goal is to help you get off the yo-yo cycle of constant dieting by learning to accept your body and understand how trying to change it is a symptom of something going on with your mental health. We want you to be able to feel fully present in your life and enjoy spending time with friends and family without being concerned with how you look or if you’re eating too much.
Our therapists treat eating disorders of all kinds. Whether you’re struggling with Anorexia, Bulimia, Orthorexia, Binge-Eating Disorder, Body Dysmorphia, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), disordered eating or any other mental health issue related to food and weight, we’re confident that our approach to therapy can help you achieve full recovery and increase your capacity for self-love and self-acceptance.
At Therapy for Women, we recognize that not everyone’s struggle with eating disorders is alike. That’s why we always customize treatment to suit the needs of each client. In addition to providing therapy, our practice has a nutritionist and psychiatrist on staff if you would like medical or pharmaceutical help. Our aim is to be as comprehensive as possible, making sure that we address every area of your health throughout treatment.
Some of the main approaches that our therapists draw from are listed below:
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—The goal of DBT is to learn new skills for coping with your urges and increasing your distress tolerance. This can help you avoid bingeing, purging, and other unhealthy means of trying to control your weight.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—Eating disorders have a way of brushing up against your values. For instance, maybe you deeply value your relationships, but your eating disorders makes you continually isolate from friends and family. ACT can help you identify your values and live in a way that’s aligned with them, ensuring that your eating disorder doesn’t interfere with the life you want.
• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)—If you have an eating disorder, you may experience fear around certain foods. ERP can help you safely and slowly expose yourself to foods that trigger you so that you can build your confidence through a gradual process of challenging your fears.
In the end, there is so much more to life on the other side of eating disorders. You can engage in your social life, be present in your relationships, and focus on what you love without constantly worrying about food or body size. We want to help you open yourself to this world of possibility by working through the mental health issues that are fueling your eating disorder.
Some of the main approaches that our therapists draw from are listed below:
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—The goal of DBT is to learn new skills for coping with your urges and increasing your distress tolerance. This can help you avoid bingeing, purging, and other unhealthy means of trying to control your weight.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—Eating disorders have a way of brushing up against your values. For instance, maybe you deeply value your relationships, but your eating disorders makes you continually isolate from friends and family. ACT can help you identify your values and live in a way that’s aligned with them, ensuring that your eating disorder doesn’t interfere with the life you want.
• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)—If you have an eating disorder, you may experience fear around certain foods. ERP can help you safely and slowly expose yourself to foods that trigger you so that you can build your confidence through a gradual process of challenging your fears.
In the end, there is so much more to life on the other side of eating disorders. You can engage in your social life, be present in your relationships, and focus on what you love without constantly worrying about food or body size. We want to help you open yourself to this world of possibility by working through the mental health issues that are fueling your eating disorder.
No, we won’t. Our practice welcomes people of all body shapes and sizes. We don’t believe that health is correlated with weight, and that’s why we are much more interested in assisting you with your mental health than we are with a number on a scale. People in all body types and sizes can be healthy and we will help you with health promoting behaviors rather than focusing on how you look.
Of course! You don’t need to have an official diagnosis to seek counseling for eating disorders. Whether you’re a chronic dieter or you simply want to have a better relationship with food and your body, we would be honored to help you address your needs and fulfill your goals.
Most therapists receive very little training on eating disorders, which is why seeing the right specialist makes such a huge difference. Our practice has decades of experience helping people work through eating disorders. We are trained in a wide variety of techniques and will give you the skills to create real and lasting change in your life.
If you want to stop obsessing over food and start living freely and more confidently, we encourage you to pursue therapy for eating disorders with us. To get started, click the button below. We can't wait to meet you!
Do You Want a Healthier Relationship With Food And Your Body?
Your Worries About Food and how you look Make Life Difficult
Eating Disorders Are the Byproduct Of A Fatphobic, Weight-Crazed World
Negative Body Image Is Especially Prevalent Among Teen Girls
Therapy Can Help You Recover from Your Eating Disorder And Start Living The Life You Want
What To Expect In Eating Disorder Therapy Sessions
Will you tell me that I have to gain or lose weight?
Can you help me even if I’m not sure that I have an eating disorder?
How do I know that my therapist will understand my eating disorder?
You May Have Some Questions About Treatment For Eating Disorders…
Your Eating Disorder Doesn’t Have to Hold You Back Anymore
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