Welcome

Tell us about yourself!

My name is Amy Allison (she/her), and I am a Behavioral Health Specialist-Float, splitting my time between The Emily Program’s Outpatient and Residential Treatment Centers in Cleveland, Ohio. I am a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC), a Chemical Dependency Counselor Assistant (CDCA), and a Registered Yoga Teacher 200 (RYT-200). I have been with The Emily Program since April 2023.

Social media is an inescapable part of our lives. It has an enormous impact on how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us.

Social platforms often shape and mirror trends in music, fitness, fashion, marketing, and more. Unfortunately, some of these trends can contribute to comparison culture, reinforcing unrealistic beauty standards and even encouraging disordered eating.

For individuals already vulnerable to eating disorders, navigating social media can present both risks and benefits.

Episode description:

Kathryn Garland and Vanessa Scaringi join Peace Meal to discuss the connection between attachment styles and the development and maintenance of eating disorders. They first provide an overview of attachment theory, exploring how this framework can help us better understand the impact of early attachment experiences on our relationships with food and ourselves. Insecure attachment styles, they explain, are associated with eating disorders and can manifest in disordered behaviors and thoughts. Kathryn and Vanessa share how therapists can help clients address attachment-related issues and nurture secure connections with family and friends that support recovery.  

Kathryn and Vanessa also dive into the impact of the pandemic on our ability to connect with others, which in turn has played a role in exacerbating disordered eating behaviors. In addition, they explain how a relational approach to eating disorder care can complement other treatment modalities, including cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). They end the episode by stressing the importance of connection to good mental health and encouraging those in recovery to take the time they need to nurture their relationships, both with others and themselves.

Mainstream ideas about nutrition are often rigid and heavily influenced by diet culture. Those with eating disorders often have thoughts and behaviors surrounding food that reflect the rigidity of diet culture. 

In order to help our clients with eating disorders nurture a more flexible, balanced, and mindful relationship with food, The Emily Program provides nutrition experiences, education, counsel, and skills—all of which are guided by our “Can Eat” philosophy. But what does this philosophy entail?

Dr. Charlotte Markey (she/her) is a psychologist and professor at Rutgers University. She is the author of The Body Image Book series, and her next book Adultish: The Body Image Book for Life comes out in 2024. You can find more of her writing at Psychology Today and on Substack.

For many people, an important part of eating disorder recovery is learning to reframe how they think about their bodies and the importance of caring for them. Understanding your body as a vehicle that moves you through your life and not tying your worth to your appearance can be essential to recovery.

As a professional who writes about body image and eating disorders, I always want to set a good example and “practice what I preach.” Like many people who work in this field, I also have a history of disordered eating, maladaptive dieting, and overvaluation of physical appearance. Fortunately, those experiences are now 30 years in my past, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have bad days where those disordered thoughts and feelings come back. 

Tell us about yourself!

My name is Neve Patterson (she/her), MSW, LGSW, and I have been at The Emily Program for over a year now as a therapist at the Anna Westin House for Adults (AWH) in St. Paul, MN! I have my Master of Social Work (MSW) degree and Licensed Graduate Social Work (LGSW) licensure, and I am working toward my Licensed Independent Clinical Social Work (LICSW) license. I grew up in Minnesota and attended college at Minnesota State University, Mankato.