Life Therapies Clinic & Training On-line One Day Workshops for 2020

Introduction to Working with Eating Disorders and Body Esteem

People do not get an eating disorder in the same way as they get mumps or a cold. An eating disorder is something that creeps up on an individual, sometimes gradually and sometimes suddenly. The eating disorder often starts well before someone knows that they are having a problem with food.

To understand why people get eating disorders, we first have to describe what an eating disorder actually is. The experts describe an eating disorder as “extreme shape and weight control behaviour” which is underpinned by excessive concerns about weight or body shape.

These feelings about shape and weight have an excessive influence on core self-esteem. As a rule, self-esteem is generally very low in someone who has an eating disorder to the point where they feel like a bad and unworthy human being.

The “extreme shape and weight control behaviour” leads to rigid rules about food, binge eating to the point of obesity, getting rid of unwanted calories by purging, self-starving to the point of emaciation, and many other ways in which a faulty relationship with food and body esteem can manifest.

This 1-day workshop aims to provide a broad understanding of the complex symptomology of eating disorders and body image distress.

Suitability: The course is suitable for counsellors, psychologists, psychotherapists, doctors, nutritionists, nurses, social workers, personal fitness trainers & other health professionals working with mental health, nutrition or disordered eating.

We also offer this course as corporate training and are happy to work with organisations wish to develop these skills. We welcome enquiries from companies seeking in house training and offer discount for groups.

This course will cover:

• Anorexia, bulimia nervosa, overeating disorders and OSFED
• Binge eating & obesity, and their associated conditions
• Body image disturbance, exercise addiction and men’s eating disorders
• Evidence based and other models of treatment suitable for the treatment of eating disturbance
• Psychological features of an eating disorder
• The relationship between nutrition, behaviour, appetite and mood
• The psychology of dieting
• Body image and self-worth, the connection
• Body image therapy
• Core beliefs in eating disorders
• Enhancing motivation, ready willing and able
• Education: What the client needs to know, and when
• Coaching for change
• How and when to use appropriate resources such as alternative professional expertise and how to integrate your work with that of the other professionals involved in the recovery process

Trainer: Bridin McKenna UKCP accredited Clinical Psychotherapist and Eating Disorder Clinician

Venue: Life Therapies Clinic & Training, Belfast

Date: Friday 26th June 2020

Investment: £85 – or book together with The Psychology of Dieting & Overeating Disorders  workshop for £150 for both (£170 if booked separately.)

Book Now: [email protected] or use booking form by clicking on link

Recognition: This course is approved by the National Centre for Eating Disorders and certified by Life Therapies Professional Training with CPD award of 8 hours.

Includes: Handouts and training resources provided. All delegates will receive a certificate of attendance.

Please note places are limited.

The Psychology of Dieting & Eating Disorders

Very many people engage in dieting. Health professionals could be forgiven for assuming that reducing diets are for overweight people. However, this is far from the case. 

Up to one third of men and women in the western world is said to be overweight. Yet twice as many believe that they weigh more than they should. Thinking that one is overweight is more common in normal weight women than in men. Moreover, not only do these normal weight people believe they weigh too much, many also have lives that are in some way restricted by worry about weight.

When we diet you exchange automatic internal regulators of appetite for conscious mental ones. You teach yourself to stop responding to hunger cues, both the lets eat and the lets stop messages. So when people break their diets either temporarily or for good they run the risk of rebound binge eating.

Also, as we diet our body shuts down, adjusts to surviving on less energy and our metabolic rate, the rate at which we use up energy – goes down. In addition there is growing evidence that repeated cycles of dieting can make matters even worse, in that people may have to eat less and for longer to lose the same amount of weight the effects of dieting are far reaching.

Psychologically dieters became more anxious and prone to feeling depressed, they have difficulty concentrating and they began to withdraw from other people and became less sociable.

Formal studies of dieting have shown that dieting provokes cravings, impulsive eating (you must eat something just because it is there), low mood, and the inability to stop eating when satiated. These symptoms persist well after someone has stopped dieting and even if they are eating normally. But not all people who diet become compulsive over-eaters so obviously something else must be true for those who develop a very unhappy relationship with food.

Giving up dieting requires complex interventions, based on education, re-evaluating the values and attitudes which create body insecurity in women, reality testing, re-framing food, and helping each individual find a formula for eating which is compatible with their lifestyle and physiology.

This 1-day workshop aims to provide a broad understanding of the, psychological and behavioural impact of dieting and the link to overeating disorders.

Suitability: The course is suitable for counsellors, psychologists, psychotherapists, doctors, nutritionists, nurses, social workers, personal fitness trainers & other health professionals working with mental health, nutrition or disordered eating. We also welcome delegates who wish to improve their own relationship with food.

We offer this course as corporate training and are happy to work with organisations wishing to develop these skills. We welcome enquiries from companies seeking in house training and offer discount for groups.

This course will cover:

• The psychology of dieting
• The physical risks of dieting and the link to overeating disorders
• The emotional effects of dieting
• Dysregulation and Disinhibition
• Health risks of dieting
• The set point theory
• The relationship between nutrition, behaviour, appetite and mood
• Typical thinking and behaviour among dieters
• Typical self-limiting beliefs among dieters
• To diet or not to diet – a critical analysis
• Binge and compulsive eating disorders
• The clients food world
• Body image in the overweight
• Enhancing motivation, ready willing and able
• Education: What the client needs to know, and when
• Coaching for change
• Evidence based and other models of treatment suitable for the treatment of eating disturbance
• How and when to use appropriate resources such as alternative professional expertise and how to integrate your work with that of the other professionals involved in the recovery process

Trainer: Bridin McKenna UKCP accredited Clinical Psychotherapist and Eating Disorder Clinician

Venue: Life Therapies Clinic & Training, Belfast

Date:Saturday 30th May 2020

Investment: £85 – Psychology of Dieting & Overeating Disorders or book together with Intro to Working with Eating Disorders & Body Esteem workshop for £150 for both (£170 if booked separately.)

Book Now: [email protected] or use booking form by clicking on link

Recognition: This course is  approved by the National Centre for Eating Disorders and certified by Life Therapies Professional Training with CPD award of 8 hours.

Includes: Handouts and training resources provided. All delegates will receive a certificate of attendance