I am a Licensed Counselor specializing in the issues of depression, anxiety, and trauma. My goal is to help you to meet life’s daily challenges and adjust to the changes of life. I will walk alongside you on your journey of growth and self-discovery through therapy. My aim is to help…whether you are looking for a safe place to explore, or to work through difficult issues, I will be there for you, providing support, every step of the way.
I am well trained in a variety of clinically proven therapy modalities including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which primarily involves trying to change our thinking patterns to gain more effective outcomes from our choices; Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which helps restore life balance and emotional regulation, and Somatic Experiencing (SE), which helps the mind and body heal from trauma.
I will work with you using modalities that build necessary skills, as well as help you process difficult issues and move through/or past stuck places. My overall goal is to provide solution-focused resolutions to your concerns.
I work with clients of all ages and from diverse backgrounds. I truly believe that although we all have different puzzles in our life that we are trying to overcome, we all have the capability and inner strength to process and work through those experiences.
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