What Every Therapist Needs to Know about Treating Eating and Weight Issues
Karen R. Koenig
Advance Acclaim
“In an era in which America has declared ’war’ on obesity at the very same time that our eating disorder ‘epidemic’ continues to spread to ever younger girls and boys, this book is an invaluable resource for the practitioner who is not a specialist in nutrition, anorexia, or behavioral neuroscience, but needs a better understanding of the food and weight issues so often linked to the life problems and clinical diagnoses they are asked to treat. Written in a lively, accessible style, this terrific book belongs on every clinician’s desk!”
—Emily Fox-Kales, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Executive Director, Feeding Ourselves, Arlington, MA
“Eating and weight issues are rapidly overtaking smoking as the leading killer in America, yet ‘90% of those who diet regain the weight and 95% regain more than they originally lost.’ As an expert in bridging the chasm between the emotional and physical aspects of eating and weight issues, Karen has given us what was lacking. This book is a comprehensive guide to understanding and addressing these concerns that are interwoven into every aspect of our client’s lives. Packed with insights and practical tips, it should be mandatory reading for all health care professionals, mental and physical alike. I love the book and am already recommending my colleagues purchase it the minute it hits the shelves! I have not seen anything like it out there.”
—Lynne Eldridge MD, author of “Avoiding Cancer One Day At A Time”
“I loved this book! It is a valuable guide to eating and weight issues written in a clear and concise manner. Karen has successfully created an important resource for both the experienced clinician and the every day practitioner who needs to understand the basic issues regarding eating and weight issues. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the seriousness of an individual's struggle to maintain a healthy relationship with food and their body. It is a unique and practical guide that is a important addition to the field of eating disorders.”
—Beth Mayer, LICSW, CEO of MEDA
Overview
Therapists often encounter clients with mild to moderate eating and weight issues, less severe than anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating disorder. They emerge as minor themes that lurk behind major presenting problems such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, trauma, and marital discord; and therapists who aren't looking for them may miss opportunities.
Koenig’s book is written for practitioners who lack expertise in this area, and provides clinical strategies and therapeutic techniques to explore clients’ feelings about food and their bodies to get at the root of these issues. It includes descriptions of how food and weight problems surface in conjunction with psychological and medical conditions, as well as how they create difficulties in various life stages and situations. Packed with insights and practical tips, this unique book teaches clinicians how to help clients make peace with food and the scale and balance nutrition and exercise in a healthy lifestyle
Content
Preface
Introduction
1. A Comprehensive Approach to Treating Eating, Weight, and Body Image Issues
2. How Clients Express Themselves Through Food
3. The Biology of Eating and Weight
4. Health and Medical Problems
5. Personality Traits and Family Dynamics
6. Assessment
7. Clinical Disorders
8. Life-Cycle Issues
9. Nutrition and Fitness
10. Transference and Countertransference
11. Treatment Options
References
Index
Excerpt
As therapists, we may naturally assume that when clients enter our office, our goal is to care for their minds. Of course, we are actually treating their entire being. The Western mind-body dichotomy is not only a confusing, unhelpful paradigm for viewing clients, but also invalid. There is no mind separate from body, no body distinct from mind. On our deepest level we are a stew of chemicals that circulate throughout our cells, from the brain’s amygdala to the miniscule muscles in our toes.
Nowhere is this mind-body integration more important than in assessing and treating weight and eating issues, for what we think and how we feel about the size, shape, appearance, functioning, and condition of our body is a result of both physical and psychological factors. Moreover, it is precisely this mind-body connection that is often functioning ineffectively. Our job is to help clients tease out what is fixed by nature from what is changeable, especially to help them transform irrational, unhealthy thinking to that which is sound and beneficial. Guiding clients to generate new, constructive thinking will in turn alter how they feel about physical aspects of themselves, even when those aspects are relatively immutable.
About the Author
Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, MEd, has worked as a specialist in the psychology of eating for 30 years. She is the co-founder of the Greater Boston Collaborative for Body Image and Eating Disorders. She lectures and teaches widely and has a private therapy practice in Sarasota, Florida.
ISBN 13: 978-0-393-70558-4
ISBN 10: 0-393-70558-7
2008 / 256 pages/ paperback
