Beyond Anorexia, Bulimia and Binge Eating Disorder: Understanding The Spectrum of Disordered Eating Behaviours

By: Hadassah (Johanna) Hazan

 

I feel frustrated when people dismiss lesser well-known disordered eating behaviours. My experience has led me to very confidently believe, that no one ends up in these sort of patterns, without there being something else going on, something that feels as if it requires some sort of distraction from, or total obliteration of. These things need healing. If they aren’t, they persist and the behaviours (coping mechanisms) developed to deal with them become harder to shift out of, thus limiting a person’s life ever more destructively. 

 

Read More

Understanding Relational Therapy and Why It Matters in Eating Disorder Treatment

By: Hadassah (Johanna) Hazan

This piece traces the evolution of relational therapy and shows why its emphasis on attunement, authenticity, and connection is especially effective in treating eating disorders. It reveals how the therapeutic relationship itself becomes a corrective emotional experience, allowing clients to access and heal the deeper wounds beneath disordered eating.

Read More

How to Choose the Right Therapist

By: Tanya Prochko

Choosing the right therapist may feel overwhelming. Here are some tips to help guide you.

Read More

Why Grownups Should Play Too

By: Rachel Ozick

…as we get older, we stop playing. We feel the need to be productive or we feel so tired from our productive lives that we pursue mindless ways to relax and shut down, like watching TV, but watching TV is not playing, and playing is more important than you think.

Read More

Challenges and Advise for People in Self-Quarantine

By: Linda Avitan

Self-quarantine is a situation that can be very stressful and challenging on many levels to oneself and one's relationships. This post examines the areas which may be challenging in an attempt to legitimize those difficulties. I offer the opportunity to reach out and seek ONLINE help in order to get through this trying period in a positive way.

Read More

Grief for the Loss of our Parents

By: Jeanne S. Lankin

Those of us granted life have to face the loss of the most profound of all our relationships. The relationship a person has with a parent, affects every stage of our life. Therefore, losing a parent at each stage in life has unique challenges.

Read More

Separation Anxiety

By: Jeni Danto

When we hear the term “Separation Anxiety,” we often think of young children off to pre-school, crying because they don’t want their parents to leave. But Separation Anxiety can come any time your child leaves the nest — especially at college age. And it’s not just limited to the child — parents can also experience Separation Anxiety when their child leaves them.

Read More

Fundamentals of Trauma Recovery, Part 6

By: Chava Lederer

In building muscle, you will literally build your container to bear it all. When your container is fortified, recovery will be easier.

Read More

Why Invest in Your Relationship Skills Before You Even Find Love?

By: Micki Lavin-Pell

No one wants to live with a feeling that disaster can strike at any time….

Read More

Intergenerational Trauma in Times of Crisis: Echoes of the Holocaust in the Present

By: Jeanne Lankin

Intergenerational trauma refers to the transmission of trauma responses from one generation to future generations including patterns of coping and survival strategies. In the case of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, trauma may have been communicated not only through shared or unspoken stories but through the emotional messages communicated in the home including generalized fear, silence, secrecy, overprotection, familial dysfunction and vigilance.

Read More

Chewbacca Visits: The Power of a Dream

By: Robin B. Zeiger

Dreams bring images and messages from the depths of our soul. It is our psyche’s way of compensating for our conscious life, which is only one-half of our life-story. Our dream life brings a richness and ebb and flow to our daily existence. Likewise when we are in touch with our unconscious, there is a flow to our daily existence much like the ebb and flow of the waves of the sea. Our unconscious helps bring us light and creativity and vitality.

Read More

Beginnings & Endings: Making Sense of Life Changes

By: Keren Burgman

The holiday season has ended, the parties and festivities subsided, and we come back to…

Read More

Resilience Series Part 2

By: Esther Adams Aharony

The ups and downs of life are associated with a rainbow variety of emotions; some are dark, and some are light. The intensity of these emotions can vary as well. Some of us have dense and opaque emotions when our emotional reactions are high. This increased emotional reactivity can tint everything the same shade or reduce our ability to see beyond these emotions, which may further reduce our ability to cope with adversities. The good news is that we can use a few strategies to keep our emotional reactivity in check, such as grounding ourselves, cultivating somatic skills, and engaging in some mindful physical exercises.

Read More

Sating the Binge

By: Chava Lederer

Bingeing is an issue of physiological needs and emotional nourishment. If we attend to these, we can find peace with food, our bodies, and our minds.

Read More

Embracing Transitions: Finding the MAGIC PAUSE Moment

By: Keren Burgman

Autumn is the season of change.  I grew up in the Midwest, Chicago.    First there…

Read More

Lets Talk About Therapy The Same Way We Talk About Going To the Gym

By: Keren Burgman

Imagine how much easier life would be if therapy was seen simply as a form…

Read More

Resilience Series Part 3

By: Esther Adams Aharony

In the previous blog, we discussed strategies to manage our emotional reactivity. Although similar, regulating emotions isn’t quite the same as managing how we react emotionally. Whereas managing emotional reactivity works like a light switch that can dim the frequency and intensity of our emotional reactions, regulating emotions, on the other hand, involves altering our emotional responses to situations. We might consider regulating emotions as our ability to adjust our own emotional states. Sometimes we do this by increasing our positive emotions, whereas other situations are better handled by decreasing our negative emotions. How...

Read More

Re-Frame Rejection so You Can Successfully Move Forward in Relationships

By: Micki Lavin-Pell

I have been rejected more times than I can count. By friends, boys, jobs, my kids, you name it… One of my most memorable rejections happened while in 6th grade. My English teacher encouraged us to write a journal, which I kept "hidden" in my desk. In it, I wrote all about a crush I had on a boy named Joey, a fellow classmate. I forgot that in the morning we sat at one desk and in the afternoon another. A fellow classmate found my journal and proceeded to read that very entry aloud to the entire class during recess.

Read More

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire

By: Chava Lederer

The four classical elements are channels through which we make contact with the present moment reality, and engage our uniquely human mind – a mind capable of creativity, of connecting to others, of faith and spirituality.  I offer you these four elements as resources in moments of stress, panic, fear, or any other overwhelming experience.

Read More

Of Guts and Brain: The Gut-Brain Axis

By: Ruth Shidlo

If you are willing to make a few changes, “disease goes away as a side effect of health.” (Hyman, 2012, p. 29)

Read More