Background: Higher weight individuals with eating disorders are increasingly seeking treatment and while many paradigms offer pathways to recovery, most options often do not include important interventions that are size-sensitive and trauma informed. The presentation will offer a first-hand account from a recovered advocate and provide clinicians with important practices to provide a healing and empowering experience for higher-weight clients as we explore topics including the medicalization/moralization of weight and health, the role of weight in disease, restriction/malnutrition as part of higher-weight eating disorders, the danger of traditional clinical assumptions about size, the impact of weight stigma, and treating weight-related trauma.
Objectives:
1. Recognize the risks of weight stigma and discrimination to overall health and identify clinical interventions that are “weight neutral” to mitigate harm.
2. Create a weight-inclusive milieu for clients in higher weight bodies with eating disorders
3. Identify and address a clinician’s own weight bias in the therapeutic countertransference.
I. Introduction
A. Welcome and Introductions
B. Overview of workshop
II. Eating disorders in higher weight bodies
A. Lived experience of an eating disorder in a higher weight body (Chevese story)
B. Traditional assumptions about weight that obscures the lived experiences of our patients and clients
C. What traditional recovery models miss
III. Weight Bias
A. What it is and how it shows up
B. Harm to our patients/clients
C. The nature of implicit bias: uncovering and mitigating to provide the best ethical care
D.
The need to extricate
anti-fat bias from psychotherapy
IV. Thin Privilege
A. Definition
B. Examples
C. Impact
D. Leveraging and mitigating impact of
E. Therapist
body size and role
V. Scenarios, Topics and Misunderstandings that Inhibit Recovery
A. Myths regarding eating disorders
B. The role of restriction in binge eating
C. Trauma of body oppression
i. cultural context
ii. therapeutic context
iii. Intersectionality and role of multiple marginalized identities
D. Medicalization of body size
E. Healthism
VI. Paradigm changes
A. Comparisons
B. Recovery
VII. Tools for Bias-Free Care
A. Stigma resistance
B. Screening for complex trauma
C. Welcoming and supportive environments
D. The need for finding community
E. Supporting emotional health in higher weight clients in an oppressive culture
VIII. The Role of the Provider
A. Doing our own work
B. Liberatory consciousness
C. Moving from awareness to analysis to action to accountability.
D. The danger of holding a neutral stance
E. Justice: Doing in our rooms
IX. Conclusion
A. Making our commitments visible
B. The role of advocacy
This presentation will feature the perspective of the lived experience from a well-known eating disorder advocate recovered from Binge Eating Disorder and offer treatment providers of all disciplines the specific paradigm changes and interventions required to treat higher-weight clients effectively. Clinicians will learn how to provide a healing and empowering experience for their higher-weight clients as we explore topics including the medicalization and moralization of weight and health, the truth about the role of weight in disease, restriction/malnutrition as part of higher-weight eating disorder presentations,the danger of traditional clinical assumptions about size, the impact of "thin privilege" on both client and treatment providers, and recognizing and treating weight-related trauma. We will also explore, through an intersectional lens, how to best help clients navigate and challenge weight-based oppression, discover ways to find a supportive community, and the critical steps needed to make the clinical space welcoming to all sizes.
Amy Pershing LMSW, ACSW is the Founder of “Bodywise™,” a comprehensive treatment program for Binge Eating Disorder, and Clinical Director of the Center for Eating Disorders in Ann Arbor. Based on 30 years of clinical experience, Pershing has pioneered a strengths-based treatment approach to BED that integrates attuned eating and movement from a weight-neutral perspective. Pershing has been featured on radio, podcasts, and television speaking about BED treatment, recovery, relapse prevention, weight stigma, and mindful eating/movement. Amy is the co-author of Binge Eating Disorder: The Journey to Recovery and Beyond published by Routledge in August 2018.
Carmen Cool, MA, LPC is a licensed professional counselor and certified Hakomi therapist in Boulder, CO. In addition to private practice, she has worked in eating disorder treatment programs and in reproductive health clinics. Her work focuses on the intersection of weight stigma and eating disorders, healing from binge eating disorder, and supporting the next generation of body positive leaders. She presents internationally on Health At Every Size ® and eating disorder prevention. Carmen is an active member of Binge Eating Disorder Association, Counselors for Social Justice, and is the past president of the Association for Size Diversity and Health.
and
Chevese Turner, BA
Chevese Turner is the Founder & CEO of the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA). Turner has advanced BEDA’s work to national recognition while becoming a leading voice on issues related to higher weight eating disorders, weight stigma and discrimination, and the under representation of marginalized communities in eating disorder treatment, advocacy, and research. She speaks regularly to audiences around the US and abroad via schools, the media, healthcare settings, trade organizations, associations, professional conferences, governmental agencies, and policy makers. Turner attended Temple University and holds a BA in Political Science.
