Attending to Emotions in Eating Disorder Recovery

Emotional dysregulation and lack of an emotional vocabulary are considered core components of the onset and maintenance of eating disorders. While most people see emotions as the problem they are trying to control via their relationship with food and exercise, the truth is that emotions are a genius response to the problems people face, pointing them in the direction of the exact solutions required. Anger, fear, and panic are three emotions dietitians frequently encounter in working with clients who present with eating disorder symptoms. This webinar will provide a map for how to collaborate with those emotions to help clients navigate their journey toward recovery.

Learning Objectives:

Following this presentation, participants will gain an understanding of:

1. The function of anger and how to differentiate it from the fight form of panic.
2. The function of fear and its connection with gut instincts and intuition.
3. The function of panic and the role of emotions in helping us manage energy efficiently.

Sarah Alexander Bio:

Sarah Alexander, LCSW has been working as a therapist in the eating disorder field since 2006. She is a former president of the Columbia River Eating Disorder Network, teaches classes to graduate counseling students in the eating disorder certificate program at Lewis and Clark College, and has been a certified Dynamic Emotional Integration trainer since 2018 (in addition to being trained in EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy). She currently runs Brave Acorn (a group practice in Portland, Oregon) where she teaches other therapists to work from a Health at Every Size and Language of Emotions lens. Several dietitians have taken her 30-hour Attending to Emotions course and report that learning to collaborate with emotions as allies has been game-changing in their work with clients.