Thursday, March 5, 2009: 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Barcelona (Westin Long Beach)
It takes years to develop language and give voice to our inner selves. People who develop eating disorders often lack the ability to access and put feelings into words. They remain isolated, disconnected from themselves and others. This workshop will offer participants the opportunity to learn a variety of imagery techniques that can facilitate healing and help patients re-connect to their bodies and their own inner wisdom. Through lecture, discussion and clinical case presentations as well as experiential exercises, participants will learn how to integrate imagery techniques into their clinical work, regardless of theoretical orientation.
After briefly introducing our clinical backgrounds and discussing the format of the workshop, (which will alternate between experiential and didactic learning) we will define “imagery,” discuss the importance of using imagery techniques particularly with eating disordered patients, and outline the basic assumptions that guide our work. We next introduce the audience to their first experiential exercise, a guided imagery,
World without Food. In processing this exercise, we will 1. emphasize techniques that help patients focus on the body and 2. distinguish two different types of imageries: those generated by patients and those generated by therapists. We have structured the workshop carefully, introducing attendees to therapist generated imageries in the beginning and later focusing on guidelines regarding how to develop appropriate patient-generated imageries.
We follow with two more therapist generated imageries: 1. Your Favorite Food Exercise again giving participants an opportunity to learn from the inside out how their own images can help them gain awareness regarding their own eating; and 2. The Inner Guide Fantasy- a guided imagery aimed at helping patients learn to listen to and trust their body wisdom.
After a short break we will reconvene and offer “Guidelines for Creating Your Own Imagery.” Seven specific steps will be discussed. Presenters will offer clinical vignettes demonstrating when, how and why to develop imageries in session. The presenters will then break the large group into smaller groups. Next, presenters will role play hypothetical therapy situations which lend themselves to imagery interventions, and the small groups will then discuss possible interventions among themselves. Large group processing will follow. Practical and ethical issues will be discussed as well as guidelines for implementing both therapist-generated guided imagery and patient-generated imagery techniques into practice. Our teaching methods include lecture, discussion, clinical case examples, and experiential work.
- To introduce participants to the use of a variety of imagery techniques that can be used in the treatment of eating disorders.
- To familiarize participants with therapist-generated imagery (scripts).
- To teach therapists to facilitate patient-created imageries that rise out of material generated during a session.
- To offer the opportunity to practice new learning under the guidance of the presenters.
- To discuss practical and ethical issues involved in integrating imagery work into one’s clinical practice.
Basic ideas and themes that guide our work:1. Eating disorders often reflect unconscious conflicts, and imagery techniques tap a deep level of consciousness, thus offering access to the unconscious. The concepts of “guided imagery” or “visualizations“ are often misunderstood as purely visual experiences. In fact, guided imagery can include all the senses: auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic, tactile, and visual.2. Eating disordered patients are often disconnected from their body sensations. Imagery work helps them re-connect to the body’s wisdom. 3. Imagery techniques emphasize and utilize the mind/body connection.4. Imagery work honors the wisdom of the body, helping patients tap into and learn to trust their own inner wisdom.5. Eating disordered people have trouble expressing feelings with words; imagery is nonverbal. Imagery techniques are adjunctive and can be integrated into most clinical practices.7. In using imagery with patients, it is important that therapists be aware of the following issues: psychoeducational preparation, relaxation/”the altered state,” breathing, creating a “safe place,” the principle of amplification, and the importance of processing the patient’s experience with imagery during the session.8. Imagery can be used to develop inner resources, retrieve memories, re-script the past, rehearse for the future, and develop self-soothing/ self-regulatory mechanisms.
Primary Presenter:
Judith Rabinor, Ph.D.
Judith Ruskay Rabinor, Ph.D. , Director of the American Eating Disorders Center of Long Island is the author of A Starving Madness: Tales of Hunger, Hope and Healing in Psychotherapy (Gurze Books, 2002). Faculty and supervisor at The Center for the Study of Anorexia and Bulimia, NYC, she is an Adjunct at Long Island University, and a Consultant to The Renfrew Center Foundation and the FEGS Eating Disorders Prevention Project, NoBody’s Perfect. She has written extensively on eating and body image disorders, lectures and conducts professional trainings nationwide and has a private practice in Manhattan and on Long Island, NY.
Co-Presenter:
Marion Bilich, Ph.D.
Marion Bilich, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice on Long Island. She is the author of Weight Loss from the Inside Out: Help for the Compulsive Eater and co-author of Shared Grace: Therapists and Clergy Working Together as well as many professional clinical papers and chapters. She is also “Ask the Psychologist” on the American Baby magazine web site. Her own site, www.marionbilich.com, focuses on how to access one’s own inner wisdom using energy psychology and imagery techniques. She speaks throughout the country on eating disorder and energy psychology.
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