Eating Disorder Recovery Awareness

It's not about image.
It's not about weight.
It's about intentional responsibility for your body.

What does that mean for you?

- Sandy Springs Psychotherapy (Soon to be Atlanta Center for Positive Change)

Eradicating Hunger - A Lenten Devotional

As a professional, I have devoted a great deal of time and energy to issues regarding hunger, deprivation, and supporting people in their efforts to say “no” and set limits.  I have attempted to understand hunger from many different perspectives including both spiritual hunger as well as physical hunger.  It seems as if the sacrifice of food is connected to the idea of Lenten sacrifice for many people.  I often hear from a variety of people every year- “I am giving up chocolate, sugar, carbs, desserts, and any and all types of foods for Lent.”  In my experience this is contrary to the very essence of Lenten sacrifice.  Hunger, both physical and spiritual, is something to understand, heal from, and eradicate.  Hunger does not enhance our relationship with Christ.  Deprivation is brutal and isolating.  Too many limits- and too many “no” responses are restrictive.

As an adolescent, I began to think of Lent as an opportunity for enrichment- an opportunity to improve myself and thus improve my relationship with God.  I have learned that when I say “yes” to people and things, I enhance my life, I add things to my life and feel sensations such as satiety, abundance, and gratefulness.  It seems that the best way to give up things that are spiritually unhealthy is by actively adding things that are spiritually beneficial.  For example, what if instead of

Recognition of Therapist Impact

Sandy Springs Psychotherapy is set up as a clinic designed to teach individuals how to become their own healer and live their life to the fullest.  Given that this is what we believe and how we practice I thought it might be important to examine the therapeutic relationship and the impact that the therapist has on an individual.  It is important that we remain thoughtful, responsive caregivers not caretakers.  The following are some thoughts on therapist impact.

Don't react- Learn to respond:

The individuals we work with are sometimes very fearful and they occasionally tell us scary things.  It is imperative to understand that people are sometimes out of touch with themselves, especially during times of distress.  During those times they may rely on gathering knowledge about themselves based on the reactions they get from those around them.  They may mistakenly get in the habit of making assumptions about themselves based on how others are treating them- rather than taking a breath and realizing how they are treating themselves and the impact that has on their interactions with others.  The difficulty occurs when they begin to feel like their feelings are not valid because

Lighter Than Air

Recently the world of dance has come under scrutiny as a cruel, cold, competitive world.  While there may be some truth to this idea, it is also partly myth.  All of the world offers opportunities for cruelty and competitiveness.  One industry alone does not hold the market share.  I wrote the following piece years ago when I happened to be working with a lot of dancers and I drew from my own experiences as a young woman who grew up in the world of dance.  Most things are not just one way or another.  Most of the world is comprised of half truths - in order to embrace our world we must look at truth from a variety of angles and not get stuck looking at the world through a narrow lens.  Let caution be present and allow complex understanding to be our guide.  Let there be room for recognition and understanding of the many facets in most parts of life.

 

Lighter Than Air
Anne Moore, Psy.D.
February 2007

The moment I enter a dance studio I want to move my body - extend myself feel my body move and work - that feels lighter than air and has nothing to do with body image or weight.  The love of dance is about your soul - not your body - it is an art form and an emotional expression.  I used to think dance was about working around your body - not feeling it, pushing through pain, ignoring it.  I could not have been more wrong.

Body Acceptance

I would like to use this forum as an opportunity to step up on my soap box and challenge everyone to let go of the term “body image”.  As a clinician who has worked in the field of eating disorders for many years, I would like to shake things up a little bit and voice publicly how much this term grates on my nerves.  Body image is just that - an image and a mirage that will never be resolved, understood, figured out, or improved by sitting in a body image group and talking about how badly we feel about our bodies.  Sorry, that is just another symptom and just falling in the trap of the image based culture we live in.  Healing is not about improving body image - it is about improving acceptance, tolerance, trust, and awareness.  When we stay focused on the idea or belief that we don't like our bodies and get hung up on the dissatisfaction that we feel about our bodies, we stay obsessed and that changes nothing.  In order to heal and improve the way we feel about our bodies we have to live in our bodies differently.  What would happen if every morning you took 5 or 10 minutes to answer the following questions before beginning your day: