Eating Disorders & Body Image Concerns

You have a complicated relationship with food and your body. Let’s not forget your love/hate relationship with the scale. You spend your time and energy attempting to follow strict diets, calorie counting, or rules about food. You often find yourself depriving your body or feeling intense guilt and shame following an emotional eating binge. On some days, it’s not so bad. You are able to put on a happy face and go through the motions. On other days though, getting out of bed can seem like an impossible task.

 

You are tired of tense interactions with family and friends, pressing pause on your goals, and risking your health all while trying to live up to unrealistic expectations. You want to get back to the days where you could manage whatever stress came your way, with skill and grace.

 

At McNally Psychology, we can help provide the knowledge, accountability, and support you need to better tolerate discomfort so you can live a more satisfying, balanced life. Our treatment process involves raising awareness to factors contributing to eating-related issues and body image concerns, increasing structure and personal responsibility, replacing harmful eating disorder behaviors with more adaptive and healthy coping skills, and facing feared foods and situations. Poor body image is addressed by deconstructing preconceived ideas about food and body and promoting body acceptance and positivity. 

 

We understand the importance of social support in treating these issues. Therefore, we prioritize educating partners and family on how they can play a positive role in your journey to recovery. We teach our clients and their support networks to practice effective communication skills in order to build and maintain trusting, respectful relationships which promote wellness.

 

Eating disorders can affect people of all ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and socio-economic statuses. They can vary in severity and type, and are oftentimes accompanied by other mental disorders, for instance anxiety and mood disorders. They often affect a person’s physical and emotional functioning. If not treated, they can be life-threatening. As serious as this can be, we want you to know recovery is not out of reach. Call us today to schedule an appointment to start your journey to mind body wellness.

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A note to parents, partners, and loved ones of those in need of support

 

Perhaps you are the individual seeking treatment for your loved one. The road to recovery is different for everyone, and can involve several twists and turns. Having worked in residential, partial-hospitalization, and intensive outpatient treatment for eating disorders, we have experience with varying levels of motivation and mindset. We are dedicated to exploring resistance, building a therapeutic connection based on trust, and assisting clients in finding intrinsic motivation for emotional and physical wellness. The process of healing and growth is anything but easy, but you do not have to do it alone.  Finding the right treatment team makes all the difference.