Disordered Eating: Working With and Through the Body/Mind of Patient and Therapist
Saturday 25 January 2020 - Dublin
A seminar led by Dr. Susie Orbach, Harriet Parsons and Bernadette Divilly
Traditionally, the term “eating disorder” is a medical expression encompassing the various psychiatric diagnoses referred to in the DSM 5. Our speakers will problematise the diagnostic criteria for a wide range of eating issues (Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Pica, Rumination Disorder and Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) to help us navigate this complex interaction between emotional issues and food.
READ MORE...This conference will be grounded in the most up to date thinking on eating problems, as well as offering some substantial and inspiring assistance to those working with this challenging client group.
Overall, it might be argued that to have an eating disorder is to have an illness which causes a great deal of damage to the body, mind and soul.
The centrality of the body is an important dimension and this seminar will explore not only the consequences of the distressed body but also the body as an expression of trauma rather than only an object to be hated.
Most clients do not understand the seriousness of their food issues, and the profound effects these have on their physiology and mental health. Denial of illness and ambivalence about treatment is one of the major symptoms that therapists may be working with as clients normalise their problem. Whether these symptoms can best be understood as an illness, as an expression of relational pain or a response to the demands of our times will be considered. We will examine what makes one eating disorder pathway more compelling than another for the patient/client, and why.
Our speakers come from diverse clinical backgrounds including psychoanalytic psychotherapy, attachment-based psychotherapy, body psychotherapy, dance movement psychotherapy. We hope to bring a broad range of ideas for our participants to consider in their clinical work. The day will begin with a talk followed by a workshop.
FULL PROGRAMME
09.00
Registration and coffee
09.30
Harriet Parsons
Treating People with Eating Disorders Today
Why, in our era of surplus, are we confronted with rising rates of eating disorders? Why are younger and younger people presenting with malnourished bodies? Why do some people suffer through their body in this way, what are they communicating? These are some of the questions that confront us when we treat people with eating disorders. In this paper, Harriet will discuss how as therapists, we can navigate through a general understanding of these serious and life-threatening disorders, in order to work with the particular individual sitting across from us.
10.30
Coffee
11:00
Bernadette Divilly
Making the Dance Home
A dance movement workshop for professionals working with eating disorders.
Unresolved relationship trauma may be expressed through an uneasy connection to nourishment, expressed in distressed eating patterns and a difficulty in feeling at home in our own bodies.
In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to experience somatic support through guided movement exercises that will include meditation, personal awareness practice and group work. I will be drawing on depth psychology and the principles of dance movement psychotherapy to offer movement based supports to therapists working with distressed eating clients. The focus is working with the body as the original and symbolic site of relationship.
12.30
Lunch
13.30
Dr Susie Orbach
Addressing the Body Today
Eating disorders are to today what hysteria was to the 19th century. They exemplify the personal and social struggles to find a place, to enunciate space, to contest the strictures of femininity and masculinity. Folded into troubled eating and troubled bodies are a complex mix of fears, emotional states and body confusions. The struggle to allow appetite and to enliven the body reshapes not just the personal but the social too.
14:30
Tea
15.00
Live Supervision with Dr Susie Orbach
16.00
Discussion
16.30
End