Background: Individuals with eating disorders are dissociated from their bodies, internal needs, and relational desires. This experiential presentation will demonstrate how to use metaphor and physical sensation to bring together cognitive (psyche) and somatic (body) processes to help clients identify relational needs, strengthen boundaries, and develop communication skills essential for recovery.
This workshop will provide the theoretical underpinnings that support the use of right brain approaches in the treatment of eating disorders. As an experiential presentation it will demonstrate the use metaphor and sensation to bring together cognitive (psyche) and somatic (body) processes in order to help clients identify and track implicit relational needs, establish and set boundaries in an embodied way, and develop communication skills essential for recovery.
1. Metaphor and imagery
A. Definition
B. Discussion of common eating disorder metaphors
C. Traditional uses
2. Description of latest neuroscience research
1.) regarding metaphor
2.) regarding imagery
3. Insight, metaphor, and storytelling examples in treatment setting
A. Examples of metaphors
B. Interactive exploration
1.) of food/eating metaphors
2.) of body metaphors
4. Introduce the principles of Stephen Porges, Polyvagal Theory as it applies to early life experiences and the development of regulatory capacities
A. Polyvagal Theory & Triune Brain Theory
B. Neuroception
1.) application to interpersonal relationships in general population
2.) application to clients with eating disorders
5. Describe how relational metaphors present themselves through movement, gestures, breath, and the autonomic nervous system in clients with:
A. Anorexia
B. Bulimia
C. Binge Eating Disorder
6. Teach skills on how to use sensation to work with implicit processes in session
A. Language of the Body
B. Therapeutic Resonance
C. Social Engagement System
7. Introduce basic sensory-motor interventions to incorporate with imagery to shift neuro-circuitry of old relational patterns. Provide practice exercises so participants can engage in activities that work with the following:
a. Proximity and Distancing (physical boundaries)
b. Engagement and Disengagement (attachment gaze - eye work)
c. Mobilization of defensive responses (fight, flight, freeze response)
8. Q&A
Eating disorders are complex, multi-layered and pernicious. In recent years, there has been burgeoning evidence for the role of emotion regulation in disordered eating. Currently, a new wave of theories is emerging that focuses on the deeper, regulatory levels of the nervous system that are correlated with our early relational experiences and responsible for the modulation of affect. These theories infer that the body, the very stage where the war is waged, is the missing link to effective treatment for eating disorders.
Because of recent discoveries in neuroscience, a “paradigm shift” is taking place in the field of psychotherapy that takes into account the dominance of nonverbal, body-based, implicit processes over verbal, linguistic, explicit processes. Science can now demonstrate that relational patterns (to self and others) are stored in the right hemisphere and are implicit in nature. According to this research, it is essential for providers to not only listen to and hear their client’s explicit narrative, but also identify and work with the implicit internal narratives on a sensory (somatic) level in order to alter existing neuro-pathways.
Many individuals with eating disorders are so dissociated from their bodies, that access to internal information about their physical and emotional needs has been dampened in favor of unconscious patterns of relating to their selves, their bodies and to others. This experiential workshop will offer skills and strategies to demonstrate how to access right brain processes (that form the basis of the relational template and regulatory system) via sensation, emotion, imagery, and metaphor – and to directly intervene with the emotion dysregulation and dissociation that is common with disordered eating. It will demonstrate how to use techniques such as story-telling and metaphor to uncover the implicit narratives and provide options for accessing sensorimotor processes (related to proximity seeking/distancing, eye gaze, and defensive responses occurring in the autonomic nervous system) in order to bridge the gap between psyche (cognition) and soma (body).
Anita Johnston, PhD, CEDS is the Clinical Director of Ai Pono IOP in Honolulu, Ai Pono Maui Residential Program in Maui, and Consultant to EATFED Eating Disorders Programs in Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, which has been published in six languages, book chapters in Bridging the Research Treatment Gap and the Psychospiritual Clinician’s Handbook, and co-creator of the Light of the Moon Café e-course.
Paula is a psychotherapist, Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, and Somatic Experiencing® practitioner in Durham, NC. She combines her understanding of attachment dynamics, eating and body image, and the latest research in neuroscience to help individuals deepen self-awareness and foster emotional resiliency. For the past eight years, she was the Eating Disorder Coordinator at Duke University. She has taught extensively on eating disorders at Duke and as adjunct faculty at the schools of social work at Smith College and UNC. She is co-creator of Eating, Attachment & Somatic Education (EASE)™, a training for eating disorder professionals. For more information, visit www.paulascatolonilcsw.com
