An eating disorder forces a person into the body. The sensations of eating, starving, purging, exercising, and chewing on sweets or salt pull a person away from internal experiences of emotion and thought. The person plunges into raw sensation or keeps that plunge in reserve, always knowing the plunge will take her away from what she can’t bear to experience.

Choices of how she will use her time are based on the sensational needs of the body to thwart awareness. Yet she will despair over her behavior, her body and the quality of her life. She wants happiness.

Facts based on reality, not preferred reality, but actual reality, become difficult to grasp. Happiness is fleeting, sporadic and often not recognized when it occurs. Recognizing what is meaningful grounds her in reality and can provide satisfaction throughout her life.

"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child." Carl Jung

If, when, you look back at a stressful time in your life, check to see where even only moments of warmth and kindness touched you. If you find those moments, remember and build on those gifts to your soul that helped you survive.

A shelf in my office in front of a window.

Using dream analysis and guided imagery methodology, you can dialogue with your obstacles and discover opportunities. Here’s an example that gives both sides of your dilemma a voice.

Virtual psychotherapy is now the standard way of delivering services. If you've been in therapy and switched from seeing your therapist in person to seeing her online or on Facetime, you may miss the personal presence and setting. But you are grateful that your work continues with the person you trust and with whom you have developed a history.

If you are new to psychotherapy or new to the psychotherapist you are considering, what's it like to start work online? Your questions may include:

1. What's it like to be with this person?
2. How will I feel with her?
3. I get a sense of a person when I am with them. How will I get that sense over a monitor?
4. I need support and warmth. Isn't virtual psychotherapy cold?
5. How can I share intimate personal information to a stranger on a screen?
6. How can she know me if she just sees my face on a screen?
7. What happens in online psychotherapy?
8. I need help. Can this kind of therapy work?