Welcome to EMBODIED RECOVERY for EATING DISORDERS (ERED) – a trauma-informed, relationally oriented, and neurobiologically supported approach to the treatment of eating disorders that weaves modalities and interventions based on the latest research in traumatology, interpersonal neurobiology, and child development.
Drawing on principles from Polyvagal Theory, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy®, Sensory Integration, and Body-Mind Centering®, EMBODIED RECOVERY for EATING DISORDERS offers training, consultation, and program development for physical and mental health professionals.
The body is not the problem. It is the answer.
Eating disorders are complex, multi-layered and pernicious. Many current evidenced-based best practice treatments have limited long-term outcomes. The body, the very stage where the war is waged, is often the missing link to effective treatment for eating disorders.
EMBODIED RECOVERY for EATING DISORDERS (ERED) is a model for assessment and treatment for eating disorders resulting from a paradigm shift emerging in the field of eating disorders treatment which brings the body to the forefront to treatment.
Long established and evidence-based, current best practices in the field of Eating Disorders Treatment recognized Eating Disorders as a Bio-Psycho-Social disorder. Multi-disciplinary treatment teams emphasize a combination of cognitive, affective and family based interventions which focus on the psychological and social aspects of eating disorders. ERED weaves together the latest research on Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, Adverse Childhood Experiences, trauma, epigenetics, and mindful movement to more thoroughly address the biological, body-based factors impacting the development of, maintenance of and recovery from eating disorders.
Expanding the current bio-psycho-social model of eating disorder assessment, ERED examines the impact the body has on disordered eating and recovery by exploring the epigenetic, prenatal and perinatal experience, anatomical, physiological, kinesiological, movement, and postural influences on the neurological regulation necessary for ‘normative eating’.
ERED facilitates the intersection of neurobiological organization, subjective experience of self, the basic human needs for attachment and defense and a life-sustaining relationship with food.
4 FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES of EMBODIED RECOVERY
for EATING DISORDERS (ERED)
- Eating disorders and recovery are impacted by “bottom-up” processing. To fully understand what drives eating disorders behaviors and thoughts, we must expand our relationship with the body to include consideration a multitude of life experiences which shape neurobiological development and regulation.
- Recovery is an additive process which increases embodiment of the attachment, defense and sensory processing systems, not the result of decreasing or eliminating eating disorders behaviors or symptoms.
- Eating disorder behaviors are the way that the body speaks about human experiences of survival, attachment and making sense of self and the world. By learning how to speak the body’s languages of 5-sense perception, sensation and movement, we can de-code the messages that eating disorders behaviors and thoughts are trying to communicate about the state of regulation and embodiment of the attachment, defense and sensory processing systems.
- The body is a resource, not an obstacle, in the recovery process and often needs to be resourced directly through a wide variety of body-based interventions before it can effectively metabolize food.
Available Podcasts
Listen to conversations about ERED and the advances in the field of eating disorders treatment.