Seeking Your Own Therapy as a Provider who Treats Eating Disorders is Essential
As a therapist or dietitian working with clients struggling with eating disorders, you provide vital care. But in the midst of offering compassion and guidance, how often do you tend to your own needs? Supporting clients through their journeys with trauma, eating disorders, and body image challenges can take a toll on your own mental and emotional well-being. Seeking support from experienced professionals who deeply understand the complexities of these struggles is not just a luxury—it’s an essential step toward sustaining your own health and enhancing the care you provide.
At Reclaiming Beauty, based in Asheville, NC, our telehealth therapy services are uniquely designed to meet the needs of professionals like you. We understand it may be difficult to find a therapist in your community who understands the unique challenges of this work with whom you don’t already have a professional relationship. We love working with professionals across North Carolina, South Carolina and Massachusetts seeking their own healing space. With a specialized focus on trauma, eating disorders, and body image/embodiment work, we offer a space for healing and transformation. Our team utilizes somatic and bottom-up approaches to help you reconnect with your body, process your own experiences, and build resilience.
What Parts of You Surface in Response to this Work?
The demands of working in eating disorder care often push therapists and dietitians to neglect their own embodiment and self-care. At Reclaiming Beauty, we believe that our bodies hold profound wisdom and the stories of our lives. The very sensations and emotions you may feel in response to your clients’ struggles can provide a gateway to deeper self-awareness and healing.
Susan McConnell, creator of Somatic Internal Family Systems, asserts, “The unity of body and mind is more than a concept. It is a lived experience that transforms us and the culture as a whole.” We believe tending to the disruptions in your own embodiment can lead to lasting, transformative healing. When you allow yourself to heal and reconnect with your body, you not only benefit personally but also strengthen your capacity to hold space for your clients.
Our Approach: Relational, Trauma-Informed and Somatic
Reclaiming Beauty’s therapists are highly experienced and trained in working from a variety of somatic and bottom-up approaches that you may also benefit from including:
Trauma-Informed Yoga
EMDR
Our somatic and trauma-focused modalities honor your body as a resource for healing. Instead of approaching recovery purely from a cognitive or behavioral lens, we guide you to tune into your physical sensations, emotions, and inner wisdom to unlock transformative growth. We believe in the principles of Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders, and especially the 4th, “Recovery equals deeper embodiment.” Embodiment is a pathway to personal, collective and ecological healing.
Why Choose Support from Reclaiming Beauty?
1. You Need a Safe Space to Process: Holding space for others can awaken your own vulnerabilities. You deserve a space to process the emotions and challenges that arise from your work. If you have your own personal history with eating disorders and body image disturbances, ongoing support with your recovery is helpful to avoid relapse. Also, therapy allows you to explore and address the issues that arise for you when working with clients struggling with the cultural messages of diet culture, ensuring these issues don’t interfere with treatment.
2. You’ll Strengthen Your Resilience: Supporting your own healing allows you to model asking for help, resilience and authenticity for your clients. You can explore obstacles to landing safely in your body in the present moment, which will bring a deeper presence to your work with your clients. You will have a space to explore compassion fatigue and work-life balance.
3. You Can Expand Your Knowledge: Working with a team that specializes in trauma and somatic approaches can deepen your understanding of these techniques, which may, in turn, enhance your professional practice.
4. Recovery Is Possible for Everyone: We believe healing is available to all, including you. Seeking care is not a sign of weakness but a reflection of your commitment to the work you do. Even if you haven’t struggled with your own eating disorder, your personal work deepening into embodiment will benefit all who you come into contact with.
Healing Is a Ripple Effect
When you prioritize your own healing, the effects extend far beyond yourself. By tending to your own embodiment and addressing any secondary trauma or burnout, you create a ripple effect of healing—enabling you to show up more fully for your clients and modeling the importance of self-care and recovery.
Step Into Your Healing
At Reclaiming Beauty, we understand the unique challenges therapists and dietitians face when working with clients who have eating disorders. Through our telehealth services, we offer the flexibility, accessibility and confidentiality to meet you wherever you are in North Carolina, South Carolina, or Massachusetts.
Let us help you rediscover the wisdom of your body, process your experiences, and support your ongoing soul nourishment. When you heal, you empower others to do the same.
Ready to explore your own embodiment and healing?
At Reclaiming Beauty, we're here to help you on this journey. Our experienced and compassionate therapists are dedicated to providing a weight-inclusive, safe and understanding space for you to explore your own trailheads to deeper embodiment. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and take a step towards your healing.
Schedule a consultation with us here so we can get to know your story and your therapeutic interests and match you with the best fit provider at our practice.
Not ready for individual work? You may be interested in joining our monthly professional consultation group, where we get real about all that is stirred up inside us in this work.
Other Services We Offer in Asheville, NC
Discover an integrative approach to well-being at Reclaiming Beauty. In addition to body-centered psychotherapy and eating disorder therapy, we offer personalized embodiment coaching to unlock the wisdom within, fostering self-compassion and resilience. Or, explore the transformative benefits of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP). This is a non-invasive auditory intervention that enhances social engagement and reduces stress.
