Michelle Kozimor

Congratulations, you’re already taking a meaningful step toward caring for yourself, and that’s worth celebrating! I’m deeply invested in your journey and committed to offering you unconditional support. I approach therapy with a warm, friendly, and genuine style that focuses on being present for you. I create a safe space where you can tap into your inner wisdom to process, heal, and find hope. I’ll guide you to develop a loving relationship with yourself and align your life with your personal values. Each counseling session is unique, and at the heart of my work is a deep passion for helping you feel seen, heard, and supported.
With decades of experience in counseling, I have a strong foundation in helping navigate grief, loss, women’s issues (including motherhood, balancing many roles, and navigating midlife), or the overwhelming feeling of life sometimes being unbearably hard—when things feel out of control, or you’re stuck in unhappiness, or struggle with a sense of aimlessness.

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”:
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