Disordered Eating & OCD Specialists in Danbury, CT
Does your mind get stuck on fear?
Do you often find yourself saying “I know it doesn’t make sense, but I still feel stressed about it”?
Maybe you worry that you look a certain way, that your health is at stake, or that something disastrous is around the bend.
You may find you get stuck in a cycle of behavior aimed at making you feel better, but is actually harming your mind and body. You may feel ashamed of these behaviors, but also terrified of giving them up.
Does this sound familiar?
Stressed about how to eat and what is actually right for your body
Wanting to feel comfortable in your body, and enjoy living in it
So over having to think about food
Wanting to enjoy a dinner with family or a wedding meal with friends without counting calories
Or even…
Losing hours a day to compulsions and even more to intrusive thoughts
Exhausted by the feelings of shame that follow the more taboo obsessions
Tired and tense all of the time
Our trains of thought can runaway with speed, but we can create new paths and get them on the right track.
You can learn how to take control over your thoughts again.
How working with a Disordered Eating & OCD specialist in Danbury, CT can help you?
While we get to know each other, we want you to unburden yourself. We do not want you to feel interrogated, but we hope that you feel relief from our more confessional elements of early sessions. You will not be judged. No obsession is too awful. No compulsion is too weird or gross. You are here to right the ship, there is no shame in that.
Once we get a full picture of how your symptoms are impacting you, we will then dive into psychoeducation. Your highly trained therapist will help you understand the functions of your symptoms, help give you the words to define the struggles that you are having, and let you know that you are not alone in these pains.
For clients with OCD, we will teach you what the clinical interpretation of their diagnosis means, the function in the dynamics between obsessions and compulsions, the neurology that paved the way, and how to override that programming to start living the life you want.
For clients with disordered eating, we will explore the impact diet culture has had on you (and all of us), direct you to new resources to change the way you think about health, provide guidance and referrals as needed in order to explore more beneficial habits, work on your sense of self and body image, and explore how disordered eating has influenced other mental health symptoms.
It may seem odd to have both OCD and Disordered Eating in the same category, but the disorders can be similar and often do overlap. For both, there is a struggle with attention, and fixating on subjects and thoughts that aren’t helpful for us, desired, or accurate. Doubt is a major symptom of these conditions, leading to a poor sense of self-efficacy and worth. Also, both can benefit from Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). This is the therapeutic strategy of systematically increasing one’s coping threshold for anxiety inducing thoughts or situations. It does not always have to be this hard.
FAQs about Disordered Eating & OCD Work
If you have more questions have a look at the FAQ page or reach out.
-
Every person benefits from nurturing relationships, therefore every person can benefit from therapy. We are all trained in evidenced based therapeutic practices that have been proved to lead to positive results. Recognizing the benefits you may receive from therapy can often require that you have a mindset shift in order to see those potential outcomes.
-
The type of work we do at Cope & Calm requires consistency and we have an expectation of weekly attendance. A 50 minute window of practice can be beneficial, but is a small time commitment when compared to the amount of time outside the therapeutic space. In order to make progress, we need to meet at a weekly cadence. The length of our time together depends on the goals you want to work on, your openness in session, and fidelity to practice outside of session. Some of our clients meet with us in 6 week bursts twice a year, others have been with us for several years as their challenges change with their life transitions.
Most of our clients report some relief after the initial session when they feel connected to their therapist and have a few suggestions to consider.
-
The primary indicator of therapeutic success is the strength of the relationship between the therapist and client. We are all highly skilled at creating connection and a sense of safety in our therapy sessions both in-person and virtually.
I will admit that when I was in my training I did not think that I would ever provide virtual sessions. However, 2020 challenged that belief, and I am so glad that it did! I love that I get to see my clients in their personal spaces. Not only is it more convenient for them and removes a barrier to consistency in treatment, but it also allows clients to get vulnerable in the safety of their home and provides additional context for the therapist that was never available before.
How Therapy in Danbury, Connecticut can help with Disordered Eating & OCD:
Imagine for a second:
Having the energy you could have if you weren’t losing time to obsessional thinking.
The joy you could experience if you weren’t worried about the macronutrients or potential contaminants on a date.
Feeling filled with self love and empowerment you could feel when you redirect your attention from a doubt based fear to a certain acceptance.
It does get better. Your days can look so different, but time is of the essence. The more we practice compulsions and engage with harmful diet thinking the more engrained those processed become. We can override them, but sooner is always easier than later.
