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EATING DISORDER RECOVERY SUPPORT

Life Healing Center is committed to helping people continue to gain freedom from the behaviors associated with eating disorders following primary eating disorder treatment. We believe that recovery from eating disorders requires support and compassions; the support of external structure couples with an environment based on understanding and mutual respect. Our treatment program combines inner work and emotional processing with practical cognitive and behavioral tools.

The experience of trauma often leads to the body being perceived as an enemy. If only one could somehow control or avoid pain, life would become manageable. Seldom do we have the capacity to express anger directly at the source of the injury. Instead, anger becomes a wall of shame, locking us in a state of denied needs. The need for control over food becomes primary, denying one’s own nutritional well-being. Or, the fear of acknowledging needs can become converted into a pattern of over-compensation. The relationship with food becomes the focal point for survival. Restricting and/or binging behaviors gradually consume more and more internal resources. The good news is there is hope for people caught in this cycle.

The treatment team at Life Healing Center has developed a variety of supportive tasks, each designed to meet the specific needs of patients at distinct stages of recovery. The tasks gradually move from reliance on external structure to increasingly internalized skills of self-regulation and personal autonomy in relationship with food.

Life Healing Center is not designed for patients who experience little or no emotional relief from an eating disorder. Patients in this stage often describe their world as a constant battle with food and their body. The tension between the eating disorder voice and the inner self is all-consuming. Individuals in this place are characteristically in need of a higher level of treatment for their eating disorder – this care level is not currently provided by Life Healing Center. We can, however, provide resources and direct individuals to the most appropriate treatment to meet the patient’s needs.