So let’s talk about the bigger picture of what we are actually doing in food and body therapy for healing relationship to food and body, including eating disorder recovery. So as dietitians, right, myself and the two other providers in my practice, we are trained to work with people on food and nutrition. And yet that is such, that is a small piece of the pie, actually, when we are looking at healing relationship to food and body, because what we are actually talking about is our relationship to nourishment.
So when a person has an eating disorder or any form of disordered eating, there’s the overt expression of having some imbalance in taking in the physical nourishment of food. And yet this is usually a flag. It’s a sign of a deeper pattern of challenge, of taking in nourishment. And when I say nourishment, I am referring to nourishment holistically, right? So there are things that we need to nourish our physical bodies.
Yes, enough food and nourishing food, enough water, enough rest, movement that feels good, ways of de stressing. But then what we also need, and more importantly, actually is emotional nourishment and relational nourishment. Relational nourishment is a sense of connection, right? Safe connection, safe and secure connection with another that lets us know, oh, I’m here, I matter. It’s okay to be here as I am. It’s okay to take up space, it’s okay to use my voice.
And when we feel that sense of solidity and affirmation of the self, and that the self that we inhabit is good and wanted and worthy, it paves the way, right. We can open up to take in nourishment for this body, mind and spirit. But if there is some essential wound to that sense of the right to be here, the right to exist, or some wound to the sense of some wound to essential needs, meaning that a young person does not get the message that their needs are worthy of being met, or that they will be met if they’re asked.
So all of these things can create an essential wounding that disrupts our ability to take in nourishment. So when a person enters the healing space, right, with me or one of the other providers in my practice, to look at their relationship to food and body, what we are examining is this larger picture, this larger inquiry of relationship to nourishment. And that’s one reason why we believe so strongly that the relationship between client and therapist is so important, because that sense of that relationship becomes a really important part of the healing.
