Curious About Recovery - Diving Into Eating Disorders

Today, I explore the Internal Family Systems (IFS) framework and its profound impact on healing from eating disorders with IFS Therapist, Celia Clark. IFS sees individuals as composed of various parts or sub-personalities, each with its own thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours. We discuss how these parts develop early in life, influenced by interactions with caregivers. Understanding when certain parts are activated and addressing their underlying needs is crucial.

We highlight four core parts involved in eating disorders: restriction, binge eating, purging, and body checking, each serving a distinct role as well as the concept of the Internal Loving Parent (ILP), a compassionate and wise aspect within us. Connecting with the ILP fosters self-compassion and creates a safe space for exploration and healing.

Nurturing a compassionate relationship with oneself is vital, acknowledging inner parts that yearn for connection. Traditional treatments often overlook relational wounds; true healing comes from fostering internal connections. IFS offers a transformative framework for understanding and healing from eating disorders. By fostering self-awareness, compassion, and connection with inner wisdom, individuals embark on a journey of recovery.

Join us in recognising and nurturing the profound connections within ourselves for a holistic approach to healing from within.

In this episode, Lauren Elise Peterson, a board certified dance/movement therapist and body image coach, joins the conversation to explore the transformative power of movement in healing and recovery, particularly for individuals struggling with eating disorders. Lauren has been passionate about eating disorder and trauma recovery for over 20 years and loves to help people feel better in their own skin through using recovery-friendly movement practices. 

This epsiode emphasizes the importance of listening to the body as a means of understanding and processing emotions, highlighting the bottom-up approach in therapy. The conversation delves into Polyvagal Theory and the significance of sensory inputs in cultivating a sense of safety within one's body, insights into the complexities of using movement as a tool for emotional processing, exploring bodily experiences without judgment, and practical insights into initiating a healthy relationship with movement. Lauren emphasizes the importance of patience and self-compassion in this journey towards embodied practices.

Listeners are invited to connect with Lauren Elise Peterson via her website and social media channels to explore her work further and stay updated on her upcoming projects, including her forthcoming book on using movement to heal the relationship with one's body.

Today I chat to Jessie Huebner about the importance of collaboration in Eating Disorder Recovery. Eating disorders are complex illnesses that need a holistic approach. Often we need an entire team of professionals working together to help those who suffer with this illness. This means that often a recovery journey can involve people like dieticians, coaches, therapists, psychiatrists, spiritual healers, family counsellors, doctors, and more.
We also know that eating disorders are no “one-size-fits-all” matter, and the world of ED recovery is constantly evolving. This is why it’s important for professionals to work together and to learn from each other along the way.
In today’s episode I chat to Jessie Huebner, LMHC, LPC, CEDS-C, QS, CEO/founder of Restored Purpose Counseling Services, about topics such as her experience in different levels of care, a holistic approach to ED recovery, Community in EDs, what healing looks like for different clients, treating the whole person, creating a group practice specific to treating EDs, family partnerships with clients of an ED, collaborating with other professionals, HAES approaches to recovery, and her involvement with the International Association for Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP). Jessie also provides business coaching for clinicians growing their private practices and looking to scale beyond solo practice. 

Too many people avoid seeking medical or therapeutic help because of existing weight stigma in the health industry. This means thousands of people don’t get the help that they need for very real, and even life-threatening illnesses like an eating disorder. 

In today’s episode I speak to Emily Andersen, Marriage and Family Therapist from PsychED Recovery, who serves as a holistic and healthy model of what it is like to be a provider in a larger body.

Emily’s mission is to create a safe, inclusive, accessible space for all clients of all identities and body types to heal from the underlying causes of their eating disorder. Her goal is to empower clients to embrace their bodies and radically and unapologetically take up space in the world. Within that same sentiment, she aspires to model for her clients that recovery is possible through her own lived experience as someone who has overcome their eating disorder in a larger body and she teaches her clients how to advocate for themselves with medical professionals in a world of weight stigma, fat bias, and diet culture. 

Today we explore Emily’s personal experience and professional insight into the world of disordered eating and advocacy for inclusive treatment for all. 

Navigating a changing body, whether it’s through eating disorder recovery or for any other reason, can be really challenging. Learning to trust your body is a process which often comes with trial and error, moments of joy, and grief. 

Coming back home to your body includes building relationship to it, which doesn’t always feel easy. In fact diet culture tells us we can’t trust our bodies! But this is not how we were born. We were born with the intuitive ability to trust our bodies, yet conditioning from systemic influences or personal experiences can lead you to “unlearn” how to do this effectively. 

In this episode, I speak to Aaron Flores about learning to trust the body, the process of going through body grief, and how one might use metaphors (like using the story of Star Wars) to grasp complex ideas in recovery from disordered eating.  

Dietitian, Intuitive Eating Counselor, Food Therapist, and Body Image Coach living in a small, rural town in Georgia. Today she shares her journey, and why she chose to work in the field of nutrition and body image.

In this episode I invite Dr Susan Perkins, licensed marriage, and family therapist, for the second time onto the show. In our first meeting together, we discussed the role of family based therapy and how it fits into the process of eating disorder recovery, for both adolescents and adults.

We explored the many misunderstandings, frustrations, and challenges that both the suffering eating disordered individual and their families undergo. After we met, we had a lovely discussion about doing an experimental episode where we flip the script a bit in that Dr Susan interviews me (Kirsten, your host) about the role my family played in my eating disorder recovery journey.

Through a series of questions, we explore my perspectives on my individual family roles in early recovery, what challenges we faced as a family, what I might have done differently, or what I might have needed from my family at the time of early recovery, my treatment process and a bit about the relational influences on my eating disorder throughout the years. Here we explore early childhood friendships, bullying, toxic vs. non-toxic relationships, work relationships, and what my healed relationships look like today.

We highlight the importance of supportive relationships in the recovery journey, and how healing the system of the family can often be the most beneficial element of a person’s recovery, wherever this may be possible.

We understand that not every person in recovery will be able to heal familial or romantic relationships, but that does not mean that recovery is out of reach for these people.

We also hope to offer some kind of insight to family members and individuals currently navigating eating disorder recovery, so that they might become aware of ways that they can support themselves or their loved ones.

Diet culture is pervasive. What it teaches, is problematic. Those that have tried it again and again, end up with a predictable set of behaviours and attitudes about food and their bodies. If the following list describes you, you may be one of them:

• It seems as if I am always on diet

• I lose weight, only to gain it again

• I am preoccupied with the desire to be thinner

• I feel guilty when I eat “illegal” foods

• I have a closet full of clothes in different sizes

• I have lost touch with my natural hunger signals

• I fluctuate between periods of sensible, nutritious eating and out of control eating

• I think about burning kilojoules when I exercise

• I am at war with my body 

You do not have to be at war with your body to be healthy. In this episode I speak with Maya Naumann, RD and member of Non-Diet South Africa on her experience with disordered eating, diet culture and being at war with her body, even through her own dietetics practise. We look at what it means to be a dieter vs. a non-dieter, how you can learn to trust your body's intuitive human element in eating practises, the flaws in the biomedical model taught in dietetics studies, assessing the root of your diet culture beliefs, and Anita Johnston's four areas for eating disorder recovery.

​Maya is qualified with a Bsc (Medical Honours) in Dietetics from Stellenbosch university in 2000. Her dietetics degree gave her a good, thorough clinical understanding of nutrition and the human body...nevertheless, she left university with a painful, shameful VERY secret, borderline eating disorder. She had a fearful, obsessive relationship with her body and with food. 

After endless researching on how to be free of this disorder she learnt how to nourish herself and her body in a life-giving, peaceful, free, joyful, abundant, celebratory way. She now helps people realise that they do not have to be at war with their bodies to be healthy.

Resolving trauma and cultivating internal healing through talk therapy can do wonders for any mental health journey. But what about those challenges that we just can’t seem to get past? There are things going on beyond the conscious thinking mind that could be at play in keeping us stuck. Today I interview Paige Frisone, an integrative and sensory practitioner, writer, creator, educator, and speaker dedicated to helping others transform their innate wisdom into soul-powered living.

She helps you access your subconscious mind, the 95% that exists beyond our conscious thinking mind. This is an intricate and elaborate way to process emotions, which requires us to communicate with the invisible part of the brain, and helps us create sustainable healing and deal with root causes to our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual selves.

This is not a process that combines a bit of everything – it is a comprehensive and scientific hybrid that combines ancient wisdom with modern science in a different and unique way.

It gives me great pleasure to share today’s episode as Paige gets vulnerable by sharing her experience with an eating disorder and mental health issues as well as how combining elements from traditional western, and ancient eastern modalities can help us truly recover ourselves in any healing journey.

She also takes us through a practical tool that you can use to start your subconscious healing today – listen to find out more!

Eating disorders affect hundreds of thousands of people around the world, yet most people still hold the stigma that they largely only affect smaller bodied, caucasian, cis-gender females. This stigma is seen across the board in treatment centres, medical practises, and societies. For this reason, people who do not fit this typical mould often face harsh and even life-threatening challenges when trying to find safe and inclusive spaces for recovery from their disordered eating. 

In this episode I speak to Kevin (they/them) about some of these challenges. I acknowledge that I ask these questions from a privileged perspective. I hope that some questions I ask are relatable - as I am sure many have the same questions, but don’t step up to ask. I hope that this episode helps those who fall into the trans+, intersex, and gender diverse populations will recognise my attempt to truly hear what you have to say, and to allow for other professionals, organisations, and individuals to challenge their own stigma, biases, and treatment procedures.

Kevin is a disabled, queer artist from Western Massachusetts. Kevin’s art and activism speaks to their lived experience with mental health in an unfiltered way. They exhibit a passionate effort toward making the world a more accessible place for everyone. And their lifelong struggle with things like ARFID, chronic illness, etc fuels this passion. When they’re not, painting, sculpting, making or building something, they enjoy being at the Nubble Lighthouse, hanging with their cats Tucker and Potato, cooking and getting lost in the woods.

FEDUP is a collective of trans+, intersex, and gender diverse people who believe eating disorders in marginalized communities are social justice issues. Our mission is to make visible, interrupt, and undermine the disproportionately high incidence of eating disorders in trans and gender diverse individuals through radical community healing, recovery institution reform, research, empowerment, and education.

Eating disorders are largely made up of self-criticism, perfectionism, inability to release control, and fear of vulnerability. Art asks you to challenge every one of those areas fully. That is why Ali Gillett from The Brave Arts, uses her artistic talent and lived experience with an eating disorder (whom she calls “Slug”), to help others navigate their internal fears with curiosity and compassion.

Ali holds a BA in Fine Art from RMIT, Melbourne, 2014, a current working with children card, and holds an NDIS workers card. She divides her time between a studio and mural practice as well as portrait commissions. Her company, Brave Arts focuses on taking the mystery out of art making, and in turn allowing the gifts that it provides to be unearthed.

In this episode Ali talks to me about how she helps her students navigate emotions, transform anger, and recognise what is within our control and what is not. She teaches us how art teaches can shift you from perfectionism to new perspectives as it requires you to look at your “ugly parts” from a gentle and inquiring space.

She also speaks about how art has helped her navigate concepts that used to baffle her such as pride and anger. She speaks about the power of choice and the concept of becoming a wholehearted person, which helped her in her own recovery journey. Ali tells us about her perspective on “eating disorder remission” rather than recovery and how vulnerability can be your greatest tool in your healing.

In today’s episode I speak with Laura Gajda, a Registered Dietitian and Nutritionist with a background in Eating Disorders and mental health diagnoses. She specialises in working with adults with Eating Disorders and building sustainability in their recovery. She is not only incredibly passionate about the work of dietetics, but she has a personal history of a loved one with an eating disorder, which feeds into her passion for helping others in a holistic way. She works with her clients to help them build their own sense of autonomy around food and decrease the power that food can have over a client's life. 

Laura acquired her Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Supervisor (CEDS) certificate earlier this year, which requires extensive training and supervision in Eating Disorder care. She recently become a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist Supervisor which means she is able to help train other Dieticians of working within the ED realm. Laura is working on making supervision for Dietitian’s cheaper so that access can be easier to accommodate and started her business NourishOthers, LLC to help new RDs work within the world of mental health and also works with clients in groups and individually.

We look at what it means for an EDRD to play a preventative role in the eating disorder recovery journey, navigating the client-professional relationship, and establishing trust in the process of recovering from eating disorders. We look at what role a EDRD plays within the treatment team, and integrating dietetics with CEDS certification. We also touch on the professional support that Laura offers other dieticians in terms of ED education.

Getting your period back after experiencing disordered eating is an important part of the recovery process. It can lead to a more fulfilled life & improved overall health. Some people may even fear not being able to conceive and become a mother in recovery because of the damage done to the menstrual cycle over the years. But there is hope!

While not every person will fully recover their natural cycle, there are steps you can take to improve those chances. And along the journey you will see how recovering your period is about so much more than simply your vitality. It’s about reconnecting to your body, learning to live in it compassionately, and feeling a sense of wholeness for possibly the first time ever.

Today my guest is Cynthia Donovan, a registered dietitian nutritionist that helps women get their periods back. She helps them reverse hypothalamic amenorrhea, restore their health, and regain fertility. Cynthia’s life purpose is to help women find balance with food and exercise. She has over 10 years of experience and founded the Eat to Regain Your Period Program in 2020. She’s helped 100’s of women across the world get their periods and life back. When she’s not serving women with period recovery you can find her having fun with the two loves of her life, her sons, Brian and Brayden.

Take a curious dive into topics around the hormonal biochemistry of the menstrual cycle, excessive exercise and food restriction, and their effect on your period, what a healthy period looks like, breaking stigma about the menstrual cycle, and approaching your body compassionately in period and eating disorder recovery. Cynthia also shares with us about how she helps women through her “Eat to Regain your Period Program” and her post recovery community she has created called “The Period Society”.

You can find Cynthia using these links:

Rachel Lewis- Marlow and Annie Goldsmith join me from the Embodied Recovery Institute to talk about the importance of embodiment (for both the individual and the practitioner) in the process of recovery from disordered eating.  

Embodied Recovery Institute facilitates trainings, consultation, and program development for physical and mental health professionals in EMBODIED RECOVERY for EATING DISORDERS (ERED) – a trauma-informed, relationally oriented, and neurobiologically supported approach to the treatment of eating disorders that weaves modalities and interventions based on the latest research in traumatology, interpersonal neurobiology, and child development. This embodied perspective draws on principles of the Polyvagal Theory, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy®, Sensory Integration, and Body-Mind Centering®.   

Some topics we explore in today’s episode include the Four Principles of Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders (ERED), recognising that recovery is an additive process (and how the body physiologically responds to being in a space of defence versus safety/attachment when cultivating lasting behavioural changes), the importance of the practitioner cultivating embodiment in their own lives, using the body as a resource and understanding it’s native language, challenging traditional parameters for what recovery looks like, and cultivating safety as a primary tool for navigating the ability to nourish the body.

Rachel has extensive experience as a teacher and presenter, focusing on accessing the body’s unique capacity to give voice to the subconscious and to lay the foundation for healing and maintaining psychological and physical health. She specializes in working with people exploring recovery from trauma, eating disorders, and dissociative disorders.

Annie holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and attended Winthrop University for her graduate coursework in human nutrition. She has experience treating eating disorders at the PHP, IOP, and outpatient levels of care. She opened her outpatient group practice, Second Breakfast Nutrition, in 2015. Her practice is rooted in a foundational belief in the inherent worthiness of all bodies. She is passionate about working with clients from a “bottom up” approach, cantering and supporting the wisdom of the body and its innate capacity for healing.

Many people come into treatment for eating disorders and co-occurring mental health concerns and are put onto prescribed medication. Whilst this approach may work, often we see people getting worse, or struggling through trial and error to find the "right" combination. What if there was a way to avoid the back and forth of things not working? What if you could even avoid certain issues being triggered in your treatment process, or avoid certain triggers completely?

This is where Wired For Addiction® comes in. Wired For Addiction® specializes in the biological component of mental health and addiction recovery. With over 100 years of combined staff experience in the addiction field and 17 years designated for Research & Development, we have poised ourselves as a global expert in the science of addiction recovery.  

In today's episode, I speak with WFA's Founder, Dr. Evelyn Higgins. Dr Higgins is a recognized international expert in the science of addiction recovery.  As a Certified Addictionologist, Diplomate of the American Board of Disability Analysts specializing in pain management, and Diplomate of the American College of Addictionology and Compulsive Disorders, Dr. Higgins has had the honor of advising the U.S. Surgeon General, producing and hosting a Gracie Award winning nationally syndicated health and wellness radio program, and serving as a 1996 Olympic Team Doctor and Olympic torch bearer.   

If you have ever struggled with poor body image, low self-esteem, disordered eating behaviors, or feelings of being powerless and out of control, there is a strong possibility that you may unknowingly pass these same struggles on to your children.

In today’s episode I chat to Dr Christina Stai, Psy. D. about how to navigate yourself and your child through every stage of childhood development – starting with pregnancy, so that this doesn’t happen.

Dr Stai is a licensed clinical psychologist and the owner of Holistic Resources LLC in SE Iowa, where she provides therapy and neuropsychological assessments for children, teens, & young adults. Dr. Stai enjoys working in areas of neurodivergence (ADHD, Autism, etc.), trauma and abuse, foster care & adoption, disordered eating, developmental delays, and behavioural and emotional concerns.

We chat about and celebrate the 1 year anniversary of her book called “Don’t Pass it On – You Can Break the Cycle” which is designed to empower and equip all you mamas and soon-to-be mamas to break that cycle.

Don't Pass It On will help you identify, understand, and navigate your past and present challenges with confidence. It will give you practical tools to better ensure that you don't accidentally perpetuate these same thought patterns in your children.

We also explore potential things to look out for when it comes to telling the difference between potentially disordered eating, neurodivergence, or simply “normal kid” stuff when it comes to food and eating in children.

You can find out more about Dr Stai and her work through the following links:

Self-Published: Holistic Publishing, LLC

Dr Heather Finley is a Registered Dietician and Gut Health Specialist who has helped hundreds of women find relief from digestive issues whilst moving away from restrictive dieting and toward long-lasting relief and balance.

In this episode she talks to us about gut health and we look at it from the lens of recovery from disordered eating. She explains a bit about the science behind why restrictive diets don’t work in restoring gut health and how a combination of low secretory IGA, stress and disordered eating can cause food sensitivities and other gut issues. She encourages food adequacy and variety as an essential parts of the gut healing process.

We look at the energy equation in gut functioning as a possible factor in feeling really full or uncomfortable when starting to eat adequately and why lowering stress and eating in a calm manner is critical in teaching the gut how to digest food properly again after disordered eating.

We also explore other tips for managing lasting relief from chronic gut issues, eating for gut health vs. Orthorexic food obsession and identifying the true source of gut issues.

In this episode I speak with eating disorder therapist and coach, Cherie Miller, owner of Food Freedom Therapy™. Cherie loves to speak on topics related to food and body freedom, which we explore at different levels in our chat. We take a look at different modalities such as CBT, DBT, ACT, and taking a gentle approach to recovery from an eating disorder.

We look at what “food freedom” looks like for Cherie specifically and how you could apply these thoughts into your own life, acknowledging that diet culture tells us that our bodies can’t be trusted, but this is not the case. Emotions are always teaching us things about ourselves, and when we can be okay with not being okay and learn to manage uncomfortable or negative thoughts and feelings, we can gently move into a space of freedom from self-punishment for perceived “imperfections”.

We also touch on the fact that spirituality has been shown to be incredibly helpful in recovery from disordered eating, body image issues, stigma around eating disorders being perceived as a mode of “vanity”, and being open in our relationships as a powerful recovery tool.

In this episode I speak with Tracy Brown, RD, LD/N who is a somatic nutrition therapist, registered dietitian, attuned eating coach, and embodiment teacher.  We explore the topic of attuned eating, taking a special look at the significance of trauma responses in eating disorders.

Tracy also shares some of her personal story around disordered eating and how she came to be a dietician. Since 2006, she has guided people in healing from disordered eating and chronic dieting, many of which have PCOS and other stress-related conditions. Tracy will walk you through not only how to stop dieting, binging and hating your body, but also teach you how to be compassionate with yourself through the process of living more fully, even when things are tough.

This episode forms part one of a two-part series with Dr Susan Perkins who earned her Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Hardin-Simmons University (2003) and her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Virginia Tech (2010).

She worked at Carolina House, a residential treatment facility for 17-year-olds and older, in a gender inclusive space for a year and a half doing family therapy. In her time there, and within her own private practise, she has been witness to many misunderstandings, frustrations, and challenges that both the suffering eating disordered individual and their families undergo. In this episode we explore what some of those are and how she approaches them in a professional sense.

So, if you or a loved one are struggling with an eating disorder, this episode aims to help you gain insight into common hurdles faced, things to do/avoid, etc. and what role the family plays in eating disorder treatment.

In part two, we will take a super deep and vulnerable dive into my (Kirsten’s) personal story with an eating disorder and the role my family played.

Dr Kari Anderson has been an eating disorder therapist for over 30 years and has a history of binge eating disorder as a teen/young adult. Her career has been driven by her own recovery and research into what causes binge eating disorder and how can we best treat it. She has written two books on Binge Eating Disorder, her latest book is a memoir, “Food, Body, and Love, but the greatest of these is love.”

In this episode we explore topics around binge eating disorder, looking at harm reduction, heart rate variance, faith-based practice and how to holistically approach flexibility and mindfulness in eating behaviours.

Carolyn is a therapist and CEDS who has specialized in eating disorders and trauma for over 12 years. She entered the area of eating disorders after the experience of having a daughter who struggled with AN for many years.

She is trained in Family-Based Treatment for AN and BN, Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.  She currently offers therapy primarily to adults who have kids with trauma and long-standing eating disorders and works from a  HAES perspective.