Eating Disorders

Do you want to form a healthier relationship with food, weight, and your body?

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. Eating disorders can manifest in very different ways, but no matter what you’re going through, therapy can help you build a better relationship with yourself. If you find yourself obsessing over food, weight, or your body image, it may be time to book a therapist with experience supporting women with disordered eating.

Eating disorders aren’t just about food or what you see in the mirror.

Our patriarchal society, pop culture, relationships, and social media have all contributed to your body image and self-esteem, whether you’re conscious of it or not. Women face incredible pressure to look and act a certain way in order to achieve their goals in life, and an eating disorder is one way this constant pressure may manifest. But know this: it is not your fault. Therapy can help you become conscious of the unrealistic standards women face, and how to change this deep-rooted programming.

Counseling can help you recognize the internal and external factors contributing to your beliefs about your body and weight. Addressing underlying core beliefs can help you understand more about your eating disorder and the complicated relationship you have with your body and topics such as exercise, weight, appearance, and food. A therapist trained in eating disorders can also help you recognize how to see yourself as more than a body—and support you as you form a better relationship with yourself.

Eating disorders are the byproduct of a fatphobic, weight-crazed world.

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. The body-positive moment has made incredible strides, but popular media is still dominated by unrealistic (and often completely unreal) depictions of skinniness. It’s hard to feel good about how we look if we don’t see other body types and shapes being celebrated.

Negative body image is especially prevalent among teen girls.

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.

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 weight.

What to expect in eating disorder therapy sessions

At Therapy for Women, we recognize that not everyone’s struggle with eating disorders is alike. We 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 BEHAVIORAL 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.

HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE (HAES) — Size-inclusive, non-diet therapy rooted in the Health at Every Size framework.

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.