The Body Image Course: Helping EVERY BODY find Peace with Food and Weight

What you’ll learn in The Body Image Course:

Cultivating Radical Self-Love: Inhabiting with Wonder and Joy the Body You’re In – Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body Is Not an Apology

This powerful conversation will examine the importance of changing the prevailing societal structures that communicate that our bodies are unacceptable as they are. Walk away with:

• Actionable take-a-ways on how to use The Body Is Not an Apology as an intervention to help clients who struggle with their relationship to their body, food, and weight
• A new perspective on how to help your clients—and yourself—break down the barriers to healing and start a revolution towards radical self-love!

Sizing Up Our Strategies: Best Practices to Treat Body Shame and Chronic Dieting – Judith Matz, LCSW, ACSW (she/her) 

Take an in-depth look at a client’s experience with multiple therapists on her journey to cultivate a healthy body image, confront weight stigma, and make peace with food. You will learn:

• How your own views toward body size and food impact what you offer clients
• Strategies to unlearn diet culture for yourself and with your clients

Untangling Weight and Health: A Physician’s Perspective – Lisa Erlanger, MD (she/her) 

Explore the myths and realities of the relationship between weight and health. Through cases, research, and resources, you will be empowered to:

• Reduce weight stigma in your office
• Advocate for a weight-inclusive approach to health for all your clients

Intuitive Eating: Healing Clients’ Relationship with Food – Aaron Flores, RDN (he/him) 

Intuitive eating is a path that allows clients to end the war with food, re-learn how to tune into their bodies, and develop a more peaceful relationship with food and body. Help your clients by learning:

• How the 10 principles of intuitive eating help clients feel safer in their bodies
• Specific tools to help heal clients’ relationships with food

Every Body Counts: Culturally-Attuned Care for Marginalized Individuals Struggling with Disordered Eating and Body Image – Sand Chang, PhD (they/them) 

Current assessment and treatment approaches for eating disorders and related body image issues have narrow parameters that do not include every body. Discover:

• Skills to successfully support inclusion by recognizing the spectrum of body image concerns and related disordered eating in a culturally-attuned manner
• How to take systems of oppression and marginalization into account in your clinical work

Black Women, Body Image, and Eating Disorders: The Missing Links in Research and Treatment – Jessica Wilson, MS, RD (she/her) 

Racial trauma informs ways in which disordered eating shows up in Black women, who are confronted every day with the contradictory message that their bodies are “too much” for Western society and at the same that they are “not enough.” This session will help you:

• Understand how weight stigma and thin privilege have roots in racism
• Gain essential strategies for discussing race and racial harm with clients struggling with disordered eating and body image concerns

Body Forgiveness: The Intersection of Forgiveness and Self-Compassion in Positive Body Image and Eating Disorder Recovery – Ann Saffi Biasetti, PhD, LCSWR, CEDS, CIAYT (she/her) 

Recovery from disordered eating and body image issues is often solely focused on behaviour change, overlooking the important component of assisting clients with developing a relationship with their bodies. You will discover:

• How body forgiveness can decrease clients’ body objectification and shame
• A body forgiveness practice to increase self-compassion

Self Leads the Way: IFS Interventions for Treating Binge Eating Disorder, Complex Trauma, and Body Shame – Amy Pershing, LMSW, ACSW (she/her) 

The experience of complex trauma significantly contributes to binge eating disorder (BED) and body dissatisfaction. If you treat trauma, you treat BED. Sadly, few clinicians are trained in dealing with both concerns, which impacts treatment for these clients. You will learn:

• Key questions to ask to uncover whether your client has BED
• How to look at BED through an IFS lens and a plan of action to avoid harm by using somatic healing and intuitive eating and movement

Eating Disorders Treatment: Applying a Social Justice Lens for Healing and Liberation – Marcella Raimondo, PhD, MPH (she/her) 

When eating disorders occur in marginalized individuals, related dynamics are increasingly complex. This session focuses on:

• Practical interventions informed by social justice principles to ensure all individuals with eating disorders can access safe treatment options
• Self-reflection exercises and case presentations to create an inclusive and healing environment

Fostering Connection with Specific Interventions: Treating the LGBTQ+ Client Through Their Eating Disorder – Christine Vara, LCSW-C, LICSW, MDiv (she/her or he/him) 

Emerging research suggests that individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ may be at higher risk of experiencing body image concerns and disordered eating alongside barriers to appropriate treatment. Increase your understanding of the challenges that your LGBTQ+ clients face as you discover how to:

• Accurately use pronouns and address micro- and macro- aggressions
• Create safer spaces for healing

Bringing Men to the Table: Effective Interventions for Eating Disorders and Body Image Concerns in Males – Andrew Walen, LCSW-C, LICSW, CEDS-S (he/him) 

Latest research indicates that males represent up to a third of those identified with anorexia and bulimia, half with binge eating, and the majority with muscle dysmorphia. Learn specific approaches for males, including:

• How to ask questions that will uncover eating disorders and body image concerns in men
• Clinical practice goals to enhance prevention and treatment

ACT for Body Acceptance: Help Clients Confront the Barriers that Stop Them from Living the Life They Value – Diana Hill, PhD (she/her) 

Hounded by unattainable white western standards about what constitutes an acceptable body, many clients stop pursuing the life they want, feel shame that they struggle with body positivity, and blame themselves for being stuck. This session will teach you ACT strategies to:

• Unhook clients’ identities from their bodies and their thoughts about their bodies
• Help clients accept the body they inhabit and use it to pursue meaningful activities even as they experience distressing thoughts, feelings, and memories

Tips for Moving Forward in Your Practice With Judith Matz, LCSW, ACSW (she/her) / Sand Chang, PhD (they/them) / Jessica Wilson, MS, RD (she/her) / Amy Pershing, LMSW, ACSW (she/her) / Andrew Walen, LCSW-C, LICSW, CEDS-S (he/him)

This session presents a dynamic discussion where five of our expert speakers break down your next steps to putting what you have learned into practice! They will help you:

• Understand and overcome challenges to working with body image concerns and disordered eating
• Gain practical tips and concrete strategies you can begin implementing in your practice

No matter whose body walks through your clinic door, you’ll be ready and confident to deliver more informed, inclusive care centred on body image, eating disorders, food, and weight.

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