Connie Jung Fox, PhD, LPC 

When an adolescent is entering counseling due to an eating disorder, it is essential that her/his family be involved in treatment. Often the Maudsley Method is recommended. 

If the client is an adult, while I am working with the client, I may recommend that the spouse, parents, or significant individual meet with my colleague, Donna Wade. Conjoint sessions are eventually arranged where both therapists and family members attend. 

Since recovery from most eating disorders is unlikely with only a once-a-week counseling appointment, I utilize a multi-disciplinary approach to the treatment of eating disorders.  Treatment proceeds best when a client is receiving therapy (perhaps initially more than once a week), working with a dietitian for nutrition therapy, seeing a medical doctor to assess for possible medical complications, and possibly working with a psychiatrist if medication therapy is indicated. At times a physical trainer may also be included in the team (if there is a tendency to exercise compulsively, or not at all). Family therapy and group therapy may also be recommended for an overall treatment plan.

The initial phase of treatment for either Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa is weight restoration and symptom reduction. Accurate logging of food is a critical behavior for someone beginning treatment. Once the client has gained some control over the eating behaviors, therapy can focus on the underlying triggers and motives to hold onto the eating disorder.

The length of treatment varies greatly and depends upon the age at onset and the duration of the disorder.

When symptoms are entrenched and an intensive outpatient approach fails to bring significant changes, in-patient treatment may be recommended.

Overeating results in weight gain. Most of the individuals who overeat have tried every popular diet available, and have succeeded more than once at losing a considerable amount of weight. They usually are well informed about healthy eating, calories, fat grams, etc. Their problem has been that once they stop dieting they return to their former disordered ways of eating. The challenge for them is to begin to log/record their food, and to become relentlessly honest with themselves about what/how much they are eating. They must also become aware of food sensitivity often to sugar, salt, carbohydrates, or fats. Many individuals in this category have no exercise in their lifstyle.  While discovering their underlying irrational beliefs about food and hunger, keeping a daily food log, and beginning a moderate exercise program, hope (and weight) can be restored!

EMDR is a dynamic intervention with empirical outcomes for the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma. EMDR  works through the mechanisms of dual attention and bilateral stimulation (usually eye movements). It is based on the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP)  model which embraces the belief that the emotional self, like the physical body, is inherently self-healing. Just as the body can heal a wound, or fight an infection, the AIP model holds that the mind wants to heal its own distress. Unfortunately, at times, unprocessed memories are dysfunctionally stored with all of the disturbing sensory input (sights, sounds, smells, physical body sensations) which can be triggered in the future. EMDR allows these unprocessed memories to be retrieved, and reprocessed and then stored without all of the disturbing aspects. The EMDR approach is more gentle than some others because only a minimal amount of details are required in order to reprocess the memory.

In September of 2011, Connie attended the first part of the EMDR I training, and will complete the second half of the training in December of 2011. She is already under supervision and beginning to work with the EMDR technique. She  believes that EMDR will assist many clients, with a history of trauma and distressing memories, to achieve a greater sense of safety and control over distressing thoughts, feelings, and memories.