Find An Eating Disorder Therapist in North Delta, BC.

Eating disorders are complex and multi-faceted. Treatment of eating disorders requires an holistic approach working with the individual and his or her family and other health care providers. More often than not, an eating disorder is a symptom of some other problem. While the individual's medical health must be monitored and controlled, therapy focuses on changing thinking and behaviour patterns that reinforce the eating challenges while exploring the underlying factors contributing to the presentation of the eating disorder.

Eating disorders are difficult because food is such an integral part of our survival and it can be a source of comfort as well as nourishment. We learn our relationship to food as young children and unconscious messages may continue to play a part in our eating habits as we grow older. Strong emotions often play a part as well since "emotional eating" is an attempt to keep our emotional balance. To develop a healthy relationship with food we need to take stock of all the elements of our lives and our culture to find a way to relate differently. You may be overlooking your strengths and be in need of a new perspective to assist in this process. Help is here - you don't need to do this alone.

Olivia has a passion for helping individuals struggling with eating disorders, providing support through a behavioral and trauma-informed approach. She helps clients uncover and address the underlying emotional and psychological factors contributing to their disorder while equipping them with practical strategies for recovery. Olivia’s compassionate and holistic approach focuses on creating a safe space for clients to explore their relationship with food and their bodies, empowering them to build healthier habits and a positive self-image. By integrating trauma-informed care with actionable tools, Olivia walks alongside her clients as they work toward healing, resilience, and lasting change.

I use the Internal Family Systems approach to eating disorders, which views disordered eating as the result of inner conflict among different "parts" of the self. Often, a "Critic" part drives restrictive behaviors, while "Exiled" parts carry painful emotions or past trauma that the eating disorder tries to suppress. I'll help you identify and understand these parts, fostering compassion and healing. The goal is to unburden the parts, heal the underlying trauma, and restore balance so that you can develop healthier coping strategies and a more loving relationship with food and body.

Eating Disorders develop as a way of navigating deep unresolved emotional pain and trauma. All our emotions and trauma are stored in our bodies. Working with eating disorders involves not only navigating the behavioural symptoms of disordered eating but more importantly developing a compassionate relationship to the body by connecting in, to where the emotional pain is stored. Together, with compassion and understanding we work on lifting the shame connected to body image and the external ways that has been created, then facing the deeper internal emotional issues at the root. It is possible to fully heal from disordered eating.

As an experienced therapist in the area of eating disorders, I have found that often the greatest healing occurs through re-connectiong with the body, developing a trusting and loving relationship with it, and discovering its wisdom. When one begins to trust that that far from being one's enemy, the body is one's constant friend and guide, one's whole experience of self can be transformed. One lives from one's own core rather than focusing on food, body image, and others' evaluations, and therefore one becomes more confident and life becomes richer and freer.

At the Family Hope Clinic we offer a range of support services provided by Registered Clinical Counsellors who are "also" Registered Art Therapists or "also" Registered Yoga Instructors. We understand that a multi-modality approach fosters the best outcomes and sustainability when addressing eating disorders. We are here to help you learn more about your needs and wants; as well as, how to build communication with loved ones to increase their understanding and obtain their support. Call today to set up your free 50 minute session!

I help my clients who are struggling with Eating Disorders based on the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach. I will help individuals understand the interaction between his thoughts, feelings and behaviours. We will develop strategies to challenge unhelpful thoughts and behaviours to improve mood and functioning. We will go over proof for the negative thoughts and proof against the negative thoughts along with goals and strategies in achieving them.

Our highly trained therapists utilize evidence-based techniques, including Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), to address the underlying emotional and psychological factors associated with eating disorders. With CBT, clients are guided to identify and challenge their distorted thoughts and beliefs about food, body image, and self-worth. By replacing these negative patterns with healthier perspectives, individuals can cultivate a more positive relationship with themselves and their bodies. DBT offers a comprehensive toolkit for clients to manage their emotions, develop healthier coping strategies, and enhance interpersonal skills.

I am able to help clients dealing with anexoria, bulimia or binge eating. By helping clients look at how and why they use food for control, reward, stress management or to deal with other emotions they can begin to change their maladative relationship with food. With some in office techniques and some out of office homework clients can have radical change in their lives. Enjoying food is one of life pleasures.

Emotional eating: Eating is not just about the food we put in our mouth, if it was then no one would have eating disorders. There are many types of eating disorders including bulimic, anorexia and over-eaters. Treatments is based on your own individual needs. Together we will work on the underlying issues and coping strategies. Food often represents love, nurturing, comfort. Before changing our eating habits, we need to find new and better ways to find comfort. Body image and issues around control are also common themes behind eating disorders. My approach is based on cognitive therapy as well as compassion and empathy.

Eating Disorders are also often related to problems of past familial dynamics, thinking, feeling, living, identity, and connecting with others. I offer what is a healthy way to eat and go through calorie calculation. Emotional support is there for boosting self esteem. Through recovery, clients strengthen their courage, to live a full life. If clients are ready to stop the unwanted behaviours with food and heal eating disorder for life, I am telling the clients, it is possible. To choose to live fully and wholly, it is necessary to manage and fix eating habits. I empower clients’ existing healthy mindset in order to override the eating disorder.

In helping the clients who struggle with Eating disorder, I benefit from concepts and tasks from internal Family Systems approach . I assist clients explore the different parts of themselves, including those parts that may be driving disordered eating behaviors (e.g., a part that uses food to soothe emotional pain). Through IFS, clients learn to identify and understand these parts, rather than being controlled by them. In addition , Clients with eating disorders often experience internal conflicts, such as feeling simultaneously driven to restrict food and to binge. Clients encouraged to access these conflicting parts, engage with them compassionately.

If you’ve struggled with disordered eating, you are all too familiar with compulsive behavior, obsessive thoughts and a disconnect from the body. You may also have a constant need for control while at the same time feeling a frightening and exhausting loss of all control. Please know that none of this is your choice, but rather is a state of stress and overwhelm while you do your best to feel better. I have nothing but compassion for the distress that comes with food-related challenges, and you have my commitment to help you care for the difficult underlying emotions involved. Together, we will create a safe space to move towards healing and a safe relationship with food and the body.

Eating disorders are often an expression of emotional distress and an unclear or negative sense of self. We explore the emotions and family patterns and relationships that might be contributing. Then we move from emotional understanding to action - we explore what is within the client's control and what is outside of their control - from there we determine in a concrete way the nature of the next steps.

Eating Disorders are single issues problems and as such should not be treated with a single minded approached to only address ones 'eating'. The whole person's experience, environment, and goals must be taken into consideration in order to create true lasting change. This is why I use Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) when supporting individuals with ED. Teaching tools to identify and support unique thoughts, emotions and behaviors - while building success on towards attainable goals that are important to the individual. You can take back control over your life.

Eating Disorders can impact someone as negatively as any type of serious addiction. However, unlike addiction treatment plans, food must continue to play a role in your life. My basic goal is to stop further development of any eating problem you may have, and assist you in returning to a healthy lifestyle. The most successful focus is on harm reduction as an overall principle in addressing eating disorders, with the end goal of moving towards complete recovery. I also typically want to establish effective coping skills to reduce the possibility of relapse and sustain the progress you make in therapy.

Recovery from eating disorders (ED) is possible regardless of how long and intensley you may have struggled with it. ED works to rob you of your life, but you can have your life back from an eating disorder. Though it rarely seems so, ED's are not about food and body image, but about the underlying emotional issues and challenges one is experiencing. I would be pleased to assist you in recovering and understanding these issues and aid you in resolving them. Each woman longs for a beauty to unfold, and I believe each woman has this. You are not an exception.

Our approach to helping clients who are dealing with an eating disorder and require treatment and counselling is to work both with the family and with the individual dealing with this stressor. We work collaboratively with the client and use Dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) and Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help manage the eating disorder. We come from a strength-based and collaborative approach.

Eating Disorders can seem like the only solution to emotional pain for many people. Eating Disorders rarely have anything to do with food itself, so it is important to truly identify the root issues involved. Often these actions are a result of some trauma in a persons life. I offer EMDR, which specifically addresses the trauma and helps the person suffering come to a peace about what happened. Eating disorders are also hard on supporting family and friends. Watching a loved one struggle with these disorders can bring about feelings of helplessness and despair as well. I would be honoured to help the family and friends of those suffering Eating Disorders come to some inner peace.

EMDR can be highly effective in addressing the root causes of eating disorders by targeting the distressing memories, beliefs, and experiences that contribute to negative body image, shame, or a sense of loss of control. Many eating disorders develop as ways to cope with trauma, emotional pain, or unmet needs. EMDR helps the brain reprocess these underlying experiences so they no longer hold the same emotional charge. As clients integrate these memories, they often experience reduced urges and self-criticism, greater body acceptance, and a more compassionate relationship with themselves and food.

Eating disorders are often related to trauma, and they are often also related to not feeling in control due to ongoing traumatic events and stress. This is because trauma is not always caused by a major single incident but can instead be can caused by smaller but daily or regularly-experienced trauma such as what might occur within family dynamics or bullying at school. Because they are commonly rooted in trauma and because they can be hard to treat with just talk therapy, EMDR Therapy is an option which can effectively address these devastating conditions and the suffering attached. If you would like further information about this, I encourage you to contact me.

Many forms or disordered eating are related to emotional eating. Somewhere along the line you have learned to soothe stress and overwhelm using food. Whether you're a binger or grazer, you are most likely familiar with feeling either in deprivation mode (you're dieting or restricting) or failure mode. Failure mode, feeling helpless and powerless in your attempts to control your eating behaviour can lead to bulimia, food addiction and binge eating. As an addictions counsellor I have specialized in Eating Disorders. Using a blend of cognitive behavioural therapy and somatic psychotherapy, I will help you change your eating patterns, stop disordered eating and develop a relapse prevention plan.

Having an eating disorder often leads to different emotions such as sadness, anger, shame and confusion. Having an eating disorder means you are probably also struggling with other mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. That is why it is really important to work with a therapist who can not only help you with symptoms of your eating disorder, but also help you with traumas and emotional difficulties that have led to your symptoms. When working with eating disorders, my goal is to help my clients understand their eating disorder from a compassionate perspective and also heal the deeper wounds that might lie underneath their eating patterns.

It is my hope that individual therapy will benefit clients who may currently be participating in community-based support groups and group therapy, giving them the opportunity to explore in more depth the underlying issues related to their challenges with food. Clients will benefit from exploring relationship issues with significant people in their lives. They will learn to identify inner and situational triggers that may have resulted in harmful patterns and choices in the past. They will benefit from identifying negative and debilitating thought patterns, and will develop self-affirming beliefs to move them to greater confidence and self-acceptance.