Eating Disorders Recovery
The experience of trauma often leads to the body being perceived as the Enemy. If
only one could somehow control or avoid pain, life would become manageable. Moreover,
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. Food
often becomes a metaphor for neediness and becomes paramount to perceived survival.
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. There is hope for people caught in this cycle.
The Life Healing Center is committed to helping people gain freedom from the behaviors associated with eating disorders. We believe that recovery from eating disorders requires support and compassion; the support of external structure coupled 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 treatment team at The Life Healing Center has developed two phases of support, each designed to meet the specific needs of residents at distinct stages of recovery. The phases gradually move from reliance on external structure to increasingly internalized skills of self-regulation and personal autonomy in relationship with food. Phase One is designed for residents who experience little relief from the disorder. Residents in this phase 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.
Through treatment, the inner self eventually becomes more audible and the resident gradually gains greater distance from the disorder. Residents in Phase Two of their treatment describe an increased sense of self; they no longer are identified fundamentally by either denial of the eating disorder or by engaging in it. Instead, they begin to experience glimpses of their innate beauty and potential. Residents describe a growing ability to access and safely process the emotions fuelling the disorder. Residents during this phase require a moderate degree of external structure coupled with increased self-regulation and self-defined boundaries.
As residents move through the phases, it is not uncommon for them to have periods in which they need to shift back into the external structure of the earlier phase to negotiate a stressful time. Our commitment is to work with each individual, to match the external structure with the person's evolving needs. Decisions about which phase is congruent with a resident's current needs are made in conjunction with the Eating Disorders Specialist, the Primary Therapist, the Dietitian, and the Resident.
