Psychotherapy has proven to be helpful for body image issues and eating disorder recovery. At Evergreen Therapy, we believe that every individual is unique, and we collaborate with you to create a treatment approach that fits your needs and supports your healing.
Body Image Therapy can help you improve your body image and develop a healthy relationship with food and exercise. It is possible to cultivate a positive body image, which means accepting, appreciating, and respecting your body. These mindsets are connected to self-acceptance, self-esteem, and healthy lifestyle choices. Body Image Therapy leads you to feel comfortable and confident in your body.
We use a variety of approaches to treat body image issues and eating disorders:
Compassion Focused Therapy helps you cultivate self-compassion, which leads to increased body satisfaction, body acceptance, body appreciation, and self-worth. Happiness, enhanced life satisfaction, higher self-confidence, greater well-being and physical health are also connected with self-compassion. Elements of this therapeutic approach involve nurturing self-kindness, recognizing that there is no ideal definition of beauty or standard of perfection, and becoming more mindful and less judgmental of your thoughts and feelings. Through Compassion Focused Therapy, you will learn to treat yourself and your body with the same loving kindness that you give to your loved ones.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) helps you handle your emotions and thoughts in a healthy, non-reactive way. DBT teaches you skills that can be integrated into everyday life. Emotion regulation skills are used to gain control over your emotions. Distress tolerance skills can be used in the moment when feeling reactive or triggered, so you can come back to baseline and lower the intensity of what you are experiencing. Interpersonal skills enhance your relationships and your way of communicating with others. Mindfulness skills bring you into the present moment so that you aren’t ruminating about the past or anxiously wondering about the future. These skillsets can help you regulate your emotions when you’re feeling unhappy about your body. They can also help you develop self-acceptance, learn to take care better care of yourself, and alleviate self-consciousness or shame that you may feel about your body.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps you identify how distorted patterns of thinking can influence your body image and lead to unhelpful or harmful behaviors, including those associated with eating disorders. The CBT therapy process involves identifying these patterns and working to interrupt, replace, and transform them. The skills you gain through CBT can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions and behaviors, thereby improving your ability to problem-solve and cope with difficult situations. This therapy approach for body image issues is also associated with increased self-confidence.
