Category: Body Dissatisfaction

Eating Disorder Therapy: How It Works

In Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorders and Body Image

How Eating Disorder Therapy Works

If you’ve considered reaching out for support with an eating disorder or body image concerns, but weren’t sure what that would actually involve, here’s an honest picture of what this process tends to look like.

What this work actually focuses on

A registered dietitian typically handles meal planning, and we often work alongside one when it’s helpful. Therapy focuses on what’s happening around the eating: the thoughts, the rules, the moments that lead up to it.

It starts with understanding the pattern

A lot of early work involves understanding what a particular eating pattern is doing for you: what it’s protecting you from, what feeling it’s managing, or what permission it’s quietly giving you. This means getting an honest, clear picture of what’s actually happening, without judgment attached. Much of this connects to understanding the restrict-binge cycle, if that pattern feels familiar.

This kind of understanding is exactly what the first few sessions of therapy for your relationship with food, in person or online across Ontario, are built around.

It means questioning rules you’ve followed for years

Many of the food rules people carry were absorbed so early, or repeated so often, that they stopped feeling like rules at all. Part of the work is identifying those rules and asking, often for the first time, where they actually came from and whether they still serve you.

It builds a different response, one moment at a time

Change here tends to happen gradually: building a slightly different response to the specific moments that used to send you straight to a rule, a restriction, or a spiral, one at a time, until the new response starts to feel more natural than the old one.

It takes longer than a diet, and lasts longer too

This kind of work is slower than a new meal/diet plan, and built to hold up well past the first few weeks a diet usually holds, because it addresses the pattern underneath rather than the symptoms alone.

If you’re ready to understand your own pattern, at whatever pace that takes, reach out to Laird Counselling Services for a free consultation to learn more about how we can help.

Common questions

Do I need a referral to start this kind of therapy?

No referral is required. You can reach out directly for a free consultation to get started.

Will I also need to work with a dietitian?

Not always, but it’s common, and Laird Counselling Services often coordinates with a dietitian when nutrition guidance is a helpful complement to the therapy work.

Weight Bias Vs Weight-Centric Bias

In Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorders and Body Image

Weight Bias Vs Weight-Centric Bias: When Naming Weight Bias Gets Labeled as Bias

There’s a pattern we’ve observed lately that’s deeply troubling. It has been present in healthcare for a long time. What’s changed is how accepted it’s become, moving into “everyone knows” territory, and that shift is what makes it dangerous.

Dangerous for the person who can no longer ask for the kind of care they actually want, because their body is being treated as something that should be eradicated. Weight-inclusive care keeps getting dismissed as “biased,” while weight-centric assumptions get accepted without question.

The Double Standard in How “Bias” Gets Used

Writer and weight-inclusive health researcher Ragen Chastain has written about this dynamic directly: providers and advocates who question weight-centric norms in healthcare are often labeled biased simply for disagreeing with the dominant approach, while that dominant approach rarely receives the same scrutiny (Chastain, “Weaponizing Weight Bias,” Weight and Healthcare). She describes this playing out in peer review, in professional presentations, and in everyday conversations where an entire body of weight-inclusive practice gets waved off as inherently biased, without the same standard applied to the assumptions it’s challenging.

When “biased” becomes shorthand for “disagrees with the accepted approach,” it gets harder for people to ask for the care they actually want, and harder for providers to offer it without pushback.

What This Means If You’re Looking for Support

You are allowed to want a provider who does not center weight in every conversation about your health. Weight-inclusive care isn’t a fringe position. It’s an approach grounded in treating the whole person rather than a single number on a scale.

If you’ve been struggling to find that kind of support, or you’re navigating a relationship with food and your body shaped more by outside pressure than by what actually feels right for you, that struggle is real. It also connects to patterns we’ve written about before, including why “just eat less” doesn’t work and how body dissatisfaction shows up day to day.

Weight-Inclusive Support in Guelph

Weight-inclusive support is available. Our areas of focus include disordered eating and body image, approached without the assumption that your body is a problem to solve. If this is the kind of support you’re looking for, reach out to schedule an introductory consultation.

Common questions

Is weight-inclusive care the same as ignoring health concerns that may be associated with weight gain?

No. Weight-inclusive care still addresses health concerns; it just doesn’t treat weight itself as the measure of health or the default focus of every conversation.

How do I know if a provider practices weight-inclusive care?

It often shows up in how a provider talks about food, bodies, and goals: whether weight loss is assumed to be the objective, and if you’re asked what kind of support you actually want.

Cheryl is a Registered Psychotherapist focusing on eating disorders, body image, and weight-inclusive care.

5 Grounding Tools and Resources for Difficult Body Image Days

In Body Dissatisfaction

5 Grounding Tools and Resources for Difficult Body Image Days

Some days, body image thoughts are louder than others. A mirror, a photo, a comment from someone else, any of it can be enough to send the day sideways. A hard body image day calls for a few small, workable tools to reach for, and the knowledge that you’re not the only one reaching for them.

1. Name it before you try to fix it

Before doing anything else, try naming what’s happening: “I’m having a body image thought right now.” It sounds small, but separating the thought from a fact is often the first real step in loosening its grip.

2. Change the input

If a specific account, photo, or comparison triggered the spiral, it’s worth changing what you’re looking at before trying to think your way out of it. Muting or unfollowing an account is removing unnecessary noise, nothing more dramatic than that.

If tools like these feel like a starting point, but you’re looking for more consistent support, reaching out for a free consultation with a Guelph-based therapist is a natural next step.

3. Ground in something physical

A body image spiral often pulls attention entirely into appearance. Bringing attention back to something physical and neutral, the feeling of your feet on the floor, a few slow breaths, a short walk, can interrupt the spiral without requiring a single clear thought.

4. Reach for a book that’s already done some of the thinking

Sometimes it helps to hear someone else put language to what you’re feeling. A few resources from our full resource list:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, one of the founding books of the non-diet approach
The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor, on radical self-acceptance and body image
More Than a Body by Lindsay and Lexie Kite, on seeing your body as an instrument, not an ornament

5. Know that support exists specifically for this

If body image thoughts are a frequent, heavy presence, that’s worth bringing to a professional. The National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC) operates a free, confidential helpline and live chat for anyone in Canada affected by disordered eating, reachable at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or through nedic.ca. A willingness to look for support is reason enough to reach out.

If you’re ready to go deeper, see what therapy for your relationship with food actually looks like.

If you’re looking for a more personal, ongoing space to work through this, that’s exactly what a first conversation with a therapist is for. Reach out to Laird Counselling Services for a free consultation to learn more about how we can help.

Common questions

How do I know if my body image struggles need professional support?

If body image thoughts show up daily, interfere with eating, exercise, or social plans, or feel impossible to interrupt on your own, that’s a reasonable signal to reach out for support.

Is this kind of work only for people with a diagnosed eating disorder?

No. Body image work is often just as helpful for everyday body dissatisfaction, comparison, or diet culture fatigue, with or without a formal diagnosis.