Full Course Description

Cultivating Radical Self-Love: Inhabiting with Wonder and Joy the Body You’re In

Copyright : 02/24/2022

Sizing Up Our Strategies: Best Practices to Treat Body Shame and Chronic Dieting

Diets and weight loss talk are normative in our culture, and this preoccupation with body size and food has a profound effect on the mental and physical health of our clients. In this session, we’ll take an in-depth look at a client’s experience with multiple therapists on her journey to cultivate a healthy body image, confront weight stigma, and make peace with food. We’ll consider how our own views toward body size and food impact what we offer clients, and we’ll explore strategies to unlearn diet culture for ourselves and with our clients.

Program Information

Objectives

Evaluate the role of disinhibition in diet failure.
Appraise the impact of attitudes toward weight on treatment offered to higher weight clients.
Develop strategies for clinicians and clients to unlearn diet culture.

Outline

Examining our own attitudes toward dieting and weight loss
Dynamics of a client who struggles with eating and weight concerns
Two different scenarios for treatment: Traditional versus anti-diet, weight inclusive approach
Research related to diet failure, weight and health and weight stigma to guide treatment strategies
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/24/2022

Untangling Weight and Health: A Physician's Perspective

Though we may have become aware of the harms of diet culture, many of us still worry about the negative impacts of weight on health. We may actively promote our clients’ journey towards body positivity but continue to “watch our own weight.” We may feel comfortable with weight neutral self-care, but only up to a certain BMI or with certain health conditions. This session will explore the myths and realities of the relationship between weight and health. Through cases, research, and resources, you will be empowered to reduce weight stigma in your office and to advocate for a weight-inclusive approach to health for all your clients.

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze the relationships among weight, weight stigma, and health.
Apply weight inclusive health principles to common clinical scenarios.
Critically appraise weight-related health research.

Outline

Weight and Health: Correlation vs Causation
Weight Stigma as a Key Driver of Health Disparities
Weight Inclusive Healthcare Philosophy and Practice
Resources
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/24/2022

Intuitive Eating: Healing Clients’ Relationship with Food

Healing body image is important work for our clients. As they engage in that healing, we also need to provide tools to help heal their relationship with food. The influence of diet culture and fatphobia leads to food rules that dominate our client’s eating for years. Intuitive eating is a path that allows clients to end the war with food and re-learn how to tune into their bodies and develop a more peaceful relationship with food and body. You’ll learn how the 10 principles of intuitive eating help clients feel safer in their bodies and around food.

Program Information

Objectives

Employ the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating in working with clients.
Evaluate clients' eating based on the 4 characteristics of intuitive eaters.
Demonstrate for clients how restricting leads to binge eating.

Outline

How to integrate the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
Tools to evaluate clients’ eating - the four characteristics of intuitive eaters
Connection between Intuitive Eating and body image
How to challenge the dieting mindset
Applying Intuitive Eating with chronic health conditions

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/24/2022

Every Body Counts: Culturally-Attuned Care for Marginalized Individuals Struggling with Disordered Eating and Body Image

Eating disorders do not discriminate, yet related assessment and treatment approaches are typically geared toward what has long been considered a “typical” client with an eating disorder: white, heterosexual, cisgender, college-educated, affluent, able-bodied, thin women. These narrow parameters do not include every body. This session will show you how to break down barriers in your practice. You will learn to support inclusion by recognizing the spectrum of body image concerns and related disordered eating in a culturally-attuned manner that takes systems of oppression and marginalization into account.

Program Information

Objectives

Differentiate between a syndrome-based and symptom-based approach to conceptualizing disordered eating.
Apply culturally sensitive, trauma-informed, and respectful language in discussing bodies and weight.
Appraise ways that traditional eating disorders assessment may underdetect people in marginalized communities.

Outline

DEFINING EATING DISORDERS - DSM Diagnostic Categories / Symptoms versus Syndromes / Limitations of current models
ETIOLOGIES / ASSESSMENT - Who suffers? What we know about incidence, prevalence / Cultural Considerations/Perspectives / Limitations in assessment with marginalized populations / Diet Culture, fatphobia, and weight stigma
MULTIMODAL MODELS: TREATMENT AND CULTURE SHIFTING - Rethinking/redefining “evidence” / Health At Every Size (HAES), Body Trust, body positive movements
THE TREATMENT RELATIONSHIP(S) - Culturally responsive care: language and bias / Clinician bias and countertransference
LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH AND POTENTIAL RISKS

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/24/2022

Black Women, Body Image, and Eating Disorders: The Missing Links in Research and Treatment

So often, the hidden assumption in assessment and treatment for poor body image is that clients’ negative views of their bodies are subjective and can shift with individual interventions. Yet oppression and race-based trauma informs the ways in which disordered eating and poor body image presents for Black women. Black women are confronted every day with the contradictory message that their bodies are both “too much” for Western society and also “not enough” for Western society.  In this session, we will explore how weight stigma and thin privilege are influenced by racism, specifically anti-Blackness, and learn how to better serve Black women in treatment settings where eating and body image are at the forefront.

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze racial bias in eating disorder and body image research.
Conduct culturally relevant and sensitive assessments and interventions for Black women clients struggling with eating and body image.
Determine strategies for skillfully raising conversations about race and gender into discussions about food and eating disorder recovery.

Outline

What are we talking about?
- DSM categories
- Limitations in the research and how this impacts assessment and treatment; the absence of Black women
- Research bias; the erasure of Black women from research on restrictive disorders and the focus on binge eating in Black women
- Weight bias and racism in health and research
Who are we talking about?
- Black women in Western society
- The racial, ethnic and cultural relevance in eating disorder development and presentation-The function of restrictive eating disorders and weight loss in Black women
- Case studies
Treatment and assessment
- What is “evidence based” in research that is heavily biased?
- Limitations of assessment and interventions -Culturally relevant conversations about food
- Why body image curriculum harms Black women
Going forward
- When to discuss race with clients
- How to bring racial harm into conversations about disordered eating

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/24/2022

Body Forgiveness: The Intersection of Forgiveness and Self-Compassion in Positive Body Image and Eating Disorder Recovery

Recovery from disordered eating and body image issues is often solely focused on behavior change. Rarely are clinicians informed about the “nuances” of recovery, such as the important stage of body forgiveness and how this presents along the recovery path. Body forgiveness helps our clients develop a relationship with their body through increasing embodiment, decreasing objectification and body shame, and increasing internal forgiveness, self-compassion and self-care and positive body image.

Program Information

Objectives

Integrate the components of Body Forgiveness in recovery.
Appraise the words clients use in this stage of recovery and formulate the clinical language that best supports their process.
Utilize a somatic practice of Body Forgiveness.

Outline

Components of Body Forgiveness
- Intersection between forgiveness and self-compassion
- Critical stage of eating disorder recovery
The “Nest Stage” of Recovery
- Why it’s unseen and overlooked
- The part in recovery where it starts
- “Now, how do I live within this body?”
Opening the Door to Deeper Embodiment
- Somatic practice of Body Forgiveness
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

Self Leads the Way: IFS Interventions for Treating Binge Eating Disorder, Complex Trauma, and Body Shame

The experience of complex trauma significantly contributes to binge eating disorder (BED) and body dissatisfaction. If you treat trauma, you treat BED. Sadly, few clinicians are trained in dealing with both concerns, which impacts treatment for these clients. In this session, you will learn key questions to ask to uncover whether your client has BED; the impact of complex trauma on the development of BED and related body image concerns; how to look at BED through an IFS lens; and how to avoid harm by using somatic healing and intuitive eating and movement.

This product is not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with the IFS Institute and does not qualify for IFS Institute credits or certification.

Program Information

Objectives

Evaluate common myths that lead to missing or mis-applying a BED diagnosis.
Investigate critical connections between complex relational trauma, binge eating behaviors, and body image concerns.
Apply a trauma-informed framework to BED treatment, including IFS, somatic, and Health At Every Size strategies.

Outline

Clients Living with BED
- Experience
- Diagnosis
- Myths and Missteps
The Power of Self
- Healing the internal ecosystem with compassion, curiosity and fierceness
Body as Ally
- Relearning the Magic of Body Wisdom
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

Eating Disorders Treatment: Applying a Social Justice Lens for Healing and Liberation

Body dissatisfaction is a primary driver of eating disorders, and when eating disorders occur in marginalized individuals, related dynamics are increasingly complex. Marginalized people seeking professional help may find eating disorders services – which were constructed for cisgender, heterosexual, affluent, thin, able-bodied women – unequipped to provide intervention and treatment for their intersecting identities. This session focuses on practical interventions informed by social justice principles to ensure all individuals with eating disorders can access safe treatment options.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise the research and practice gaps with regard to EDs and treatment.
Analyze what eating disorders treatment would look like through a social justice lens.
Develop ways to translate awareness into action in our understandings of and approaches to ED treatment.

Outline

Eating Disorders and Social Justice
- Interventions with a social justice approach
- Supporting research
- Group work
- Real case vignettes: The struggles of marginalized folks accessing treatment
Self-Reflection Dialogue
- Safety agreement reviewed again
- Self-reflection exercise
- Ways to safely and compassionately move through discomfort when discussing social justice
Advocate for Change
- Promote social justice in our eating disorders clinics and the field overall
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

Fostering Connection with Specific Interventions: Treating the LGBTQ+ Client Through Their Eating Disorder

Emerging research suggests that individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ may be at higher risk of experiencing body image concerns and disordered eating alongside barriers to appropriate treatment. This session focuses on understanding the challenges that LGBTQ+ individuals face so that we can create safer spaces that invite them to heal. We will review specific interventions that can help connect LGBTQ+ individuals to recovery in ways that are relevant to their journey.

Program Information

Objectives

Distinguish at least 3 unique challenges experienced by LGBTQ+ individuals and their treatment implications.
Respond to micro and macro aggressions in order to advocate for and create safer spaces for clients.
Employ three family intervention strategies for LGBTQ+ clients with eating disorders to improve treatment outcomes.

Outline

Cultivating safe and inclusive space for LGBTQ+ clients
- Integrating inclusive language
- Identifying and responding to micro aggressions
- Understanding and validating the impact of their lived experience on their body image, sense of self, and eating disorder(s)
Navigate issues of gender identity, gender expression and sexuality with clients and why that’s important to body image concerns and eating disorder recovery
Interventions for individual, group, and family work
- Individual: daily practices (body scans, mindfulness), identifying/externalizing narratives of systemic oppression
- Group: values identification, finding role models, art/creative strategies
- Family: address psychological distress of recovery for both client and family; remain aligned around recovery; reinforce and repair family connection

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

Bringing Men to the Table: Effective Interventions for Eating Disorders and Body Image Concerns in Males

Males, long thought to make up just 1 in 10 eating disorder cases, require help in ever greater numbers. Latest research indicates males represent up to a third of those identified with anorexia and bulimia, half with binge eating, and the majority with muscle dysmorphia. To identify and treat males, it takes a complete re-think of what you assume eating disorders look like and how to assist those who are struggling with the deadliest mental illness in the DSM.

Program Information

Objectives

Demonstrate appropriate screening tools and approaches for males with eating disorders and body image concerns.
Develop specific clinical practice goals to enhance prevention or treatment approaches with males.
Integrate social justice factors in treatment of males with body image concerns.

Outline

Etiology, psychological assessment, and evidence-based intervention
Latest research in the field of males with eating disorders
Social justice including racial, ethnic, sexual and gender diversity populations
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

ACT for Body Acceptance: Help Clients Confront the Barriers that Stop Them from Living the Life They Value

Clients are swimming upstream when it comes to positive body image. Hounded with unattainable white western standards about what constitutes an acceptable body, many stop pursuing the life they want. And at the same time, clients can feel shame that they struggle with body positivity and may blame themselves for being stuck. This session will teach you strategies from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help clients accept the body they inhabit and use it to pursue meaningful activities even as they experience distressing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Program Information

Objectives

Determine the role of avoidance of thoughts and feelings about body image in keeping clients stuck.
Describe the differences between acceptance and approval when it comes to body image.
Employ values-based action plans to guide clients in taking committed action toward their values.

Outline

Different Approach to Body Image Struggles
- Not depending on body positivity or approval
- Acceptance vs approval when it comes to body image
- Building psychological flexibility
Help clients unhook from Negative Thoughts and Feelings
- Strategies to develop courage to start doing what is important to them
- Working with the body image they have
- Values-based action plans
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

Tips for Moving Forward in Your Practice

In this session, you will:

Understand and overcome challenges to working with body image concerns and disordered eating
Gain practical tips and concrete strategies you can begin implementing in your practice

No matter whose body walks through your clinic door, you’ll be ready and confident to deliver more informed, inclusive care centered on body image, eating disorders, food, and weight!

Program Information

Objectives

Evaluate two challenges faced by clients with disordered eating and their treatment implications.
Apply three strategies focused on inclusivity to improve treatment outcomes for clients struggling with body image and eating concerns.
Utilize an experiential exercise to address client beliefs about body image.

Outline

Re-Examining Our Attitudes Regarding Body Image and Eating Disorders
- Triggers and beliefs that surfaced during this summit
- Impact on clinical practice, clients and ourselves
Barriers to Delivering Affirming Care to Clients with Body Image, Eating Disorders, Food, and Weight
- Case studies: Problems and challenges that get in the way of helping clients
- Best practices used by panel faculty and consultees/supervisees
Essential Next Steps to Delivering Inclusive Care to Clients with Body Image, Eating Disorders, Food, and Weight
- Top three recommendations you can implement tomorrow
- Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Copyright : 02/25/2022

Body Image and Sexuality: Befriending the Sexual Self After Trauma

Sexual trauma can set off body hatred and create a distancing from the body, particularly the sexual body, in order to feel safe again. In this session, we’ll explore sociocultural and neurobiological factors affecting clients’ relationships with their bodies after sexual trauma. Working to reduce shame and self-blame, we will develop tools for assisting clients with befriending their sexual bodies. You will learn powerful interventions including cognitive reframing of the context while adding somatic experiencing and sensorimotor tools for healing the body, as well as relational and social strategies for practicing safe intimacy again.

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze at least 3 barriers to optimal sexual functioning that clients who have experienced sexual trauma face.
Develop cognitive restructuring techniques to assist clients who have experienced sexual trauma to improve treatment outcomes.
Conduct at least 2 exposure practices to decrease avoidance of the sexual body.

Outline

Socicultural context being a sexual being: shame, guilt and fear
Socicultural context of sexual trauma: blame, avoidance and re-enactment
Neurobiology of sexual trauma: safety vs. pleasure
Somatic impact of sexual trauma: my body isn’t mine anymore
Tools for integration and healing
- social/ emotional/ relational tools
- physical/ sexual tools

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

EMDR for Body Image Concerns and Disordered Eating

EMDR can be a core intervention in the treatment and maintenance of recovery from trauma, including its impacts on body image and disordered eating. This session will offer suggestions for all 8 phases of EMDR treatment and review ways to work collaboratively with medical providers. Somatic awareness, self-nurturance, and wellness principles are an important part of treatment and will be discussed alongside cultural implications. You will learn to use sensitive terminology and the “do’s and don’ts” for these clients.

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze the relationships between childhood trauma, attachment, dissociation, and disordered eating.
Employ at least 5 evidence-based, culturally-sensitive EMDR interventions.
Develop effective communication strategies with clients’ spouses/partners, families, medical providers, and other treatment team members.

Outline

Understanding the evidence base for EMDR with body image concerns and disordered eating
Nuances of language - do’s and don’ts in treatment
EMDR Phases 1-8 and Future Template, with modifications for eating disorders and body image concerns
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors 
Social Workers 
Psychologists 
Psychiatrists 
Marriage & Family Therapists 
Addiction Counselors 
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Other mental health professionals

Treating the Whole Person: A Transdiagnostic CBT Approach to the Treatment of Eating Disorders

Emotional avoidance is a distinguishing feature of eating disorders as well as many other clinical conditions, including anxiety and depression which often co-occur with disordered eating and body image concerns. This session will demonstrate how emotional awareness, tolerance, and acceptance can be built utilizing transdiagnostic treatment.

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze at least 2 maintaining factors of eating disorders.
Formulate at least 3 benefits of using a transdiagnostic approach to treat eating disorders and body image concerns
Conduct two emotion awareness skills.

Outline

Context of the Problem: Patient Complexity, Complexity of Treatment Modalities, Research-Practice Gap
Solution to the Problem:  Transdiagnostic Model & the Unified Protocol, Emotional Awareness tools to put into immediate practice
Building Emotional Tolerance through Emotional Exposure.  Video demonstration and practice exercises in building and facilitating cognitive flexibility and empathy
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Health at Every Size®: A Weight-Inclusive Paradigm for Eating Disorders Treatment, Recovery and Harm-Reduction

Health at Every Size (HAES)™ has become a widely used frame in the treatment of eating disorders, especially for those clients who are higher weight, because of the prevalence of weight stigma and discrimination in both the culture and clinical care. This presentation will clarify the tenants of HAES™ and discuss how and why they can be helpful for individuals who require healing from eating disorders and also from anti-fatness and the resulting trauma. The importance of recognizing healthism will be addressed along with the limitations of HAES™ in communities who face oppression(s) and the need for concepts that provide harm reduction to break down the walls fortifying barriers-to-care.

Program Information

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders

Psychoanalytic thinking offers valuable insights to clinicians working with eating disorders and body image concerns. In a field that increasingly emphasizes rapid symptom reduction, treatment providers risk neglecting less overt, and less easily measurable, aspects of the patient’s experience. This presentation will bring together the latest thinking about how a psychoanalytic approach can help us to understand the emotional experience of an eating disorder more deeply. As a member of a larger treatment team, the psychoanalytic psychotherapist assists the patient in contending with an internal landscape marked by isolation and loneliness as well as shame, guilt, and embarrassment, not to mention a profound hopelessness about the possibilities of emotional connection. In this presentation, we will discuss the role of the psychoanalytic thinking within a broader therapeutic approach and several common psychodynamic themes commonly observed in patients with eating disorders.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise the role of symbolic functioning in psychological health and why facilitating this capacity in clients with eating disorders and body image concerns is an important component of treatment.
Formulate case conceptualization of eating disorders and body image concerns from a psychoanalytic frame, including how object hunger and breakdowns in containment impact the client.
Distinguish how body image fluctuates alongside shifts in self-states.

Outline

The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist as a Member of the Larger Treatment Team
Alexithymia and Deficits in Symbolic Functioning
Object Relations and Traumatic Themes
Self-States and Dissociation
Self-States and Body Imaginings
Limitations of the Research and Potential Risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other mental health professionals

A Guide to Integrating Spirituality into Psychotherapy for Eating Disorders and Body Image Concerns

For many of our clients, to ignore the spiritual is to ignore their sense of the very essence of who they are. Use of clients’ spiritual beliefs in the process of treatment, recovery, and healing can be done ethically and respectfully in ways that improve clinical outcomes. Integration of spirituality into psychotherapy is especially important for those suffering eating disorders and body image concerns, the hallmark of which is disconnection from one’s true-identity. This session will show how attending to “the spiritual” need not detract from nor replace evidence based clinical interventions - rather, use of spiritually-inclusive clinical approaches can support and strengthen best practices.

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze the role of spiritually-inclusive approaches in the treatment of eating disorders and body image concerns.
Evaluate at least 3 ethical issues as it relates to clinical treatment of eating disorders and body image concerns.
Devise at least 4 spiritually inclusive interventions that can be implemented in treatment of clients with eating disorders and body image concerns.

Outline

Importance of spiritually-inclusive psychotherapy for eating disorders
Special Considerations: clinical competencies and ethical considerations
Assessing and understanding the client's spirituality
Spiritual inclusion: specific approaches, processes, principles, interventions
Summary towards application: what’s your approach? experiential activity
Limitations of the Research and Potential Risks

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counselors
Registered Dietitians & Dietetic Technicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Autism and Eating Disorders: Understanding Co-Occcurence Issues with Food and Body Image

Join Kim Clairy, OTR/L, an autistic occupational therapist, for this interview style session as she shares her journey breaking through many personal and societal barriers, including navigating the healthcare system with ASD and an eating disorder (ED). Kim is joined by Marcella Raimondo, PhD, MPH, a passionate and spirited clinical psychologist who specializes in treating eating disorders.