Bias Clarity and the Therapeutic Alliance 

Bias in psychotherapy needs to be on the table. This is critical for a cooperative alliance between client and psychotherapist.

With or without an eating disorder, we all live our lives based on our agendas with our values and perceived survival needs leading the way. If we balance our emotions and stress levels with overeating we will get short term benefits. If we let overeating continue to balance our tolerance for stress we move into isolation, self-criticism and loneliness break our own hearts and can't save ourselves from our pain.

                                           Compassion is powerful yet has a light touch.

Eating disorders overwhelm a person's life. A person with an eating disorder needs compassion for herself and compassion from others.

I wonder, and ask myself and you and anyone who will listen, why is compassion so difficult to achieve in this or any culture? We all need it, and the benefits of sharing it are huge. Or better yet, we can skip the why question and get to the more practical one: how can we develop compassion?

Do you know your values, morals and ethical standards? Do you live by them? Do you have an inner unicorn? (see below.*)

 

 

This *graphic is based on a closeup picture of a butterfly wing. Catapillars do not go to sleep and emerge as butterflies. Just like us, seeking to transform into an eating disorder free person living a lovely new life, the metamorphis of the catapillar butterfly experience is one of acknowledgement, battle, disintegration, transition, creativity, determination and emergence.

Read on for detail and description of  "Experiential Levels of Patient and Psychotherapist during Eating Disorder Recovery Work."