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Our Therapist Team

Finding the right therapist for you is important. The team of therapists at Arizona Connection Counseling has a broad variety of specialist skills and approaches. We’d like you to introduce you to them.

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Addiction & Compulsive Behaviors
Anger Management
Anxiety & Depression
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Eating Disorders & Body Image Issues
EMDR
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Healthy Boundaries
Hypnotherapy
Life Transitions
Parent-Child & Family Relationships
Self-Esteem & Self-Awareness
Sexual Issues & Intimacy
Trauma/PTSD
Young Adults & Teens

How Can We help You?

The relationship between therapist and client is the basis that all our work is built on; there has to be trust, there has to be a level of comfort between the two. Although we know the topics and issues that we explore may become uncomfortable, you have to feel safe.

We encourage you to read our therapists’ bios, explore our services and specialties, and identify who you think you would feel most comfortable and confident talking to. Then it’s time to book an appointment and start your journey toward health and healing. If you just don’t know where to start, please contact us – our team is here to help. We will match you with the therapist best suited to you and your needs.

Questions? Contact Us

If you are a new client and ready to book an appointment, follow this link, give us a few details, and you can access our scheduling calendar. Existing clients, please use the login button at the top of the page. If you have a question, please reach out to our team using our contact form, or at 480-744-5864 (call/text) or email info@azconnectioncounseling.com.

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Eating Disorders - It's Not About the Food

By Kelly Lopez

If it’s not about the food, what is it really about?

The eating disorder serves a function, it does a job. Despite the problems an eating disorder creates, it is an effort to cope, shield against, communicate, and solve problems. Behaviors may be a way to establish a sense of power or control, self-worth, strength, and containment. Bringing may be used to numb pain. Purging may be a way to release emotions. When one cannot cope in healthy ways, adaptive functions (behaviors) are created to ensure a sense of safety, security, and control.
According to Carolyn Costin*, some of the “adaptive functions that eating disorder behaviors commonly serve are”:
  • Comfort, soothing, nurturance
  • Numbing, sedation, distraction
  • Attention, a cry for help
  • Discharge of tension, anger, rebellion
  • Predictability, structure, identity
  • Self-punishment or punishment of "the body"
  • Self-cleansing or self-purification
  • Protection or safety (through creation of a small or large body)
  • Avoidance of intimacy
  • Proof for self-blame instead of blaming others (for exampl, abusers)
It’s not about the food, it’s a way of coping with low self-esteem, negative emotions, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, unstable home, difficulty resolving conflict and much more.
*Costin, Carolyn. The Eating Disorder Sourcebook: A Comprehensive Guide to the Causes, Treatments and Prevention of Eating Disorders. 3rd. edition, McGraw Hill, 2007.
Fuller, Kristen. “Eating Disorders: It’s Not All about Food.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 22 Mar. 2017

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-is-state-mind/201703/eating-disorders-it-s-not-all-about-food