Find An Eating Disorder Therapist in Fairfield, CA.

As a woman, I know all too well the ways that you may find yourself in a painful relationship to food and to your body. Society's unrealistic standards and preoccupation with women's external beauty can challenge a woman's self worth at various stages of life. Perhaps this is old news to you but you don't know how to free yourself from it. In our work, we begin by listening to your body and cultivating a relationship with it. Getting to know your body on a deeper level and your full range of feelings, is getting to know you and what really matters to you. It may feel daunting or strange, but I assure you it is one of the most rewarding processes towards truly enjoying your body and food.

When someone is suffering with an eating disorder the best treatment will be a comprehensive program consisting of a medical evaluation, nutrition and exercise counseling, psychotherapy for the individual and perhaps the family as well, support groups and possibly a referral to a psychiatrist. The client may have access to all these through an inpatient treatment program or may be seeking to piece these together in outpatient treatment. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy has been shown to be an important part of effective treatment for eating disorders. CBT can help support the individual and the family in understanding the dynamics of an eating disorder and working to overcome it.

Most eating disorders are experienced by people whose lives feel out of control. This often comes from having an autonomic nervous system that does not regulate the body well. This dysregulation is based in both shock trauma (single episode overwhelming events) and developmental trauma (repeated lower grade trauma and attachment/neglect problems). I use Somatic Experiencing to help individuals to gain mastery over their autonomic nervous system and feel like they are once again back in control of their body and their life.

I help my clients to understand how their eating disorder symptoms are attempts to communicate internal conflicts and get unmet relational needs met in a safe way. I help them express these hidden struggles and conflicts and the emotions connected to them and get their emotional needs met so that they can learn to let go of these behaviors that are on longer serving them.

I work with people who have previously received treatment for eating disorders and want to maintain or further their recovery. Because we need to eat to survive, we are confronted with our relationship to food every day. Deeper work on how our thoughts and emotions become represented in our bodies and food can bring an understanding of the reasons behind an eating disorder, as well as help discover new ways to manage it. I believe the way we relate to our bodies, our sustenance, and ourselves can be understood more deeply in order to live with greater compassion, acceptance, and confidence.

I use mindfulness techniques and sometimes EMDR to help clients who are struggling with disordered eating. The goal in working this way is to contact the moment when a decision is being made - either to eat too much, or to restrict food, or to purge - and work toward being able to tolerate the feelings that lead to the action. In working this way, we create space for making a choice, deciding to respond differently. For each client it is important to understand why the disordered eating came into being. I believe there are good reasons why eating disorders are developed, and it is important that this is addressed in the therapy.

Eating disorders and body image issues can be overwhelming, causing people to isolate and not live the life she/he would like. Treatment can be tricky because sometimes people are caught between wanting to recover and not wanting to let the eating disorder go. When working with someone who has this struggle, it is important to help them uncover what the eating disorder is providing for them. From there, strategies can be developed to fill the same needs but in a healthy way so clients are able to reach their potential.

While most eating disorder issues are treated by cognitive behavioral methodologies or specialized outpatient/inpatient programs, Grey Matters International and the work of Kevin J. Fleming, PhD provide relief first and foremost for the brain of one suffering from an eating disorder----without giving them medication. We believe that the neural circuitries responsible for the compulsive behaviors with eating are not necessarily only a neurotransmitter issue but of overused neural networks that affect the harmonization, balance, and decisions of the whole brain. Contact kevin@kevinfleminphd.com or 877-606-6161 to learn more about this safe and effective alternative.

You don't have to have to be emaciated or eating all the time to know you have a problem with eating. You might have a problem identifying what you need and your default way to self-soothe is controlling food intake or eating too much. The time to get help is when you notice your eating habits are not healthy. Get therapy to figure out what you are feeling and needing so you can take care of your eating habits in a healthy way and have control over your life again.

Eating disorders are one way that maladaptive coping can come up. Controlling our eating can be a way that we control our lives. Much of managing eating disorders is managing the stress in our lives, setting boundaries with others, and focusing on caring for ourselves. I approach eating disorders in much the same way I do stress/anxiety: by supporting you to unravel the patterns and dynamics that got you here.

Even if a person with an eating disorder recognizes that their behavior is self-destructive, they often feel powerfulness to change it, because of the temporary relief that it brings. Seen, in this way, as a form of addiction, there is almost always an underlying relational component to the compulsive behavior. The problematic behavior is a very meaningful expression of some tension or conflict which has been internalized as a way of managing difficult feelings. Though we may employ specific behavioral strategies, my primary goal will be to help you identify and understand what your behavior is trying to communicate, and to resolve it so that you may have a healthy relationship to food.

I work with compulsive/emotional eaters to get to an understanding of what feelings are hiding underneath the eating behavior. Knowing about the feelings and finding other ways to deal with them is key to stopping the compulsive eating. In Compulsive Eating workshops, I use Geneen Roth's anti-dieting approach. This is about using certain behavioral tools to change eating habits. For example, not eating in the car or not eating standing up. Each person's journey through this struggle is unique and I will offer you my guidance and understanding as well as a sociological approach to how the diet and fashion industries brainwash women into hating their bodies.

This is an area of specialization for me. I go into detail about how I work with eating disorders on my website. My main approach is a combination of working on baby step ways to improve my client's relationship with food, eating, and her body. We also work with the deeper emotional issues and childhood wounding that have triggered the eating disorder symptoms.