Find An Eating Disorder Therapist in Barrie, ON.

Our therapist Arshiya specializes in helping clients through disordered eating habits such as restrictive dieting and bingeing and purging. Therapy can address unhelpful beliefs about food and body image, enhance self-worth, and form a better relationship with food so that healthier eating habits are established. When working with disordered eating, it is important to understand that it is not all about food- but rather, unhealthy dieting habits are the product of extreme stress, trauma, low self-esteem, depression or anxiety. These root issues will be addressed to help you start taking control back in your life and feeling better.

Eating disorders are not really about food. They involve complex emotional issues that have significant impact on ones physical, emotional and social health. If you are preoccupied with your weight, focused on body image, size, or shape, compelled to perform specific rituals around food, obsessive about food, or deem foods as “safe” or “unsafe” to eat or uncomfortable participating in social activities involving food (such as getting dinner with friends) you may be engaging in disordered eating. I offer free consultations to answer your questions and help you determine if therapy will be beneficial for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Issues with eating are an understandable reaction to difficult or traumatic circumstances. The word disorder is faulty as it implies that it is a single person's disorder. However, the disorder is one of society. Due to limitations and restrictions of society, institutions, media, and groups, we have learned to restrict and or indulge ourselves in food. It is my goal to explore the emotional and cognitive roots of your issues with food as well as to figure out just how these limitations and restrictions of our society and/or families have affected you. In discovering the roots of the struggle, we can then collaboratively work towards health and healing.

For many Christians it can be beneficial to their success in therapy to have a therapist that holds an understanding and respect for their religious and spiritual beliefs. While I do not offer Christian counseling services, at our clinic Psychotherapy Collective, one of our therapists Sarah works with Christian clients to combine evidence based psychotherapeutic techniques with piety, humility, forgiveness, faith development, spiritual development, and community. Schedule a free 15-minute consultation with Sarah to see if she is a good fit for your journey https://www.psychotherapycollective.ca/our-team/therapist/sarah-glinski

I can support you when dealing with emotional and disordered eating and help you with behavioural changes towards healthy eating patterns, including shifting from shame to empowerment, calming the nervous system, regulating emotions without turning to food, and assisting you in reestablishing physical cues for fullness and hunger and replacing the inner critic with self-compassion. Trauma-informed clinical tools will help you improve your relationship with food and your body.

Eating disorder can overshadow your life, stealing the joy and self-respect. I have worked with many who struggled with eating disorders and disordered eating and yes, it is possible to fight it and move beyond it. In the therapy with me you become aware of your strengths, your limitations and areas that need strengthening. You discover you are not alone and let the guilt and shame sweep away and become stronger. You learn how to create healthier boundaries, recognize triggers and become emotionally and mentally stronger.

“There are various ways that individuals with eating disorders describe “dealing with” painful feelings: They may numb them through starving, soothe or push them down with bingeing, or get rid of them through purging. This vicious cycle of fearing, avoiding, and feeling overwhelmed and incapacitated by feelings, to the point of having to stay ill or inflict self-harm to escape, makes Emotion-Focused Therapy a compelling approach to treating eating disorders. Emotion-Focused Therapy works directly with painful emotions, and views them as a source of information and meaning. Emotion, if paid attention to, can be like a beacon or a flashlight, leading us to what is important.

Body image is a real and present struggle for many women and this issue is rising in men as well. With the constant bombardment of food and beauty focused advertisements from all sources of media, it can such a struggle! I have worked with many types of addictive habits, eating disorders included. I can help you understand yourself better and provide you with some effective strategies to create new healthier habits, ones that create an inner peace, empowerment, and breaking the cycle!

While most eating disorder issues are treated by cognitive behavioral methodologies or specialized outpatient/inpatient programs, Grey Matters International and the work of Kevin J. Fleming, PhD provide relief first and foremost for the brain of one suffering from an eating disorder----without giving them medication. We believe that the neural circuitries responsible for the compulsive behaviors with eating are not necessarily only a neurotransmitter issue but of overused neural networks that affect the harmonization, balance, and decisions of the whole brain. Contact kevin@kevinfleminphd.com or 877-606-6161 to learn more about this safe and effective alternative.