Concentric Counselling
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welcome to the concentric journal

 
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Fat Bubble: Bethany Rutter
Fat Bubble: Bethany Rutter
Why Bingeing is Only Half the Story
Why Bingeing is Only Half the Story

When people come to Concentric Counselling with a history of bingeing, they are often surprised that one of the first things I ask them is how often they restrict their food intake. To them, they are coming because the issue is bingeing. But what continues to reveal itself in the therapy room is that for many people that struggle with bingeing these episodes punctuate long periods of restriction.

The Heart of Body Collaboration - Intentions and Inspirations
The Heart of Body Collaboration - Intentions and Inspirations

Let me share with you some more details of the exciting model that I’ve been developing. Called Body Collaboration, it has emerged from my practice over the last ten years, a compassionate response to clients sharing a persistent issue - ‘I’m trying to hate myself into being ok with myself’. Body Collaboration is a pushback to a kyriarchal culture that teaches us to admonish ourselves rather than accept ourselves. It’s a radical practice of gathering in the most abandoned parts of ourselves, and offering them healing. And it’s a lovesong to what I think is the most powerful thing on Earth – partnership, collaboration, working together for the good of the all.

Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery
Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery

I often meet clients when they're in a particular spot... they’ve turned their back on intentional weight loss, knowing that going back into that way of life will only cause harm and open them up to risk. At the same time, they don't know how to transition into a space of body acceptance, knowing that there will also be loss in that decision.

From apology to entitlement - battling body assumptions
From apology to entitlement - battling body assumptions

In my corner of the world, we talk a lot about anti-fat bias or fatphobia and, more broadly, how it is to live in a body that is marginalised by dominant culture – through race, gender and sex, body size or shape, or disability.

Sometimes our conversations about anti-fat bias can take on a very theoretical and abstract form – as a systemic issue, of course we often look at it through a wide-angle lens. More recently, though, I’ve been thinking more and more of the individual impact of anti-fat bias – what it really means to live in a fatphobic culture.

Sensory Five - safety at your fingertips
Sensory Five - safety at your fingertips

Overwhelm and burnout don’t just happen in Covid times – these are themes I’ve been working for since the very beginning of my counselling career. It’s when our nervous system becomes overloaded, and we really struggle to regulate ourselves; feeling either anxious and agitated, or zoned out and flat.

Introducing A Modern Practice - Let Me Tell You More
Introducing A Modern Practice - Let Me Tell You More

For those of you who follow me on Instagram or subscribe to my mailing list you will know that I have been building towards a space for therapists to come together and connect. I’m so happy today to be able to outline this a little more, and introduce this idea to you.

Lessons from the ebb - how to get through when life draws back
Lessons from the ebb - how to get through when life draws back

We're in an ebb season, collectively, I think. And we're not encouraged to think about this at all. The effects of the pandemic, here in the UK, have been upon us for eleven months. And what’s been so surprising is how little accommodation we will often make for this. We’re living in a global tragedy – a collective trauma. Life has, necessarily, had to recede. We have had to lean hard on our internal resources – our patience, our hope, our tenacity. Understandably, we’re feeling a little depleted.

Embracing a non-diet new year - setting body positive resolutions 
Embracing a non-diet new year - setting body positive resolutions 

The relentless treadmill of diet resolutions is about to crank itself up again, at the start of the new year. After all the festive food adverts, Boxing Day onwards will see the focus shift instead to weight loss programmes, diet foods and new ‘healthy eating’ cookbooks, sold to you by slim people. It is a predictable, exhausting cycle, which perpetuates unhealthy ‘all or nothing’ thinking, and punishing and unsustainable restriction.

A beginner’s guide to developing body acceptance
A beginner’s guide to developing body acceptance

And so begins December, the month where dominant culture tends to deep-slide into a clarion call for ‘indulgence’ before, as regular as clockwork, the adverts and articles that promise ‘new year, new you’. Christmas is an exaggerated example of the pendulum swing that diet culture encourages; ricocheting between too much and not enough – all governed by a deep fear that we ourselves are not enough.

What recovery restores... satisfaction

It’s my final piece for Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2020, and a chance to reflect on all that recovery can restore to us. This week, I’ve looked at how recovery can restore to us a sense of self, core wisdom, time and connection. I say it a lot, but recovery isn’t just about weight restoration - it’s about all the other things that recovery can restore to us. Today, however, I am talking about food; although, in another sense, it’s not about the food at all…

what recovery restores… satisfaction

In an experience of disordered eating or eating disorders, food gets reduced to the bare minumum of what it represents - energy units. Counting and controlling, we forget all the other reasons why we eat. Recovery restores to us all the potential of food - all its wonderful satisfaction and nourishment - yes, physically, but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

When a baby breastfeeds, they’re not just doing it for hunger and thirst; they’re also doing it for connection, comfort, pain relief and immunity. And, honestly, multi-faceted relationship with food is one we can retain throughout our lives. When people are asked why they go out to dinner, food is often the fourth or fifth reason they give: it’s also… celebrating, trying something new, seeing loved ones, to be served and looked after, convenience. Whilst a good meal in a good restaurant is delicious and something to savour, it isn’t the totality of the experience. And when we deny ourselves food, we deny ourselves everything that goes with the experience of eating for more than the very basics.

RESOURCE

To reduce food to just food, without context or connection, is to reduce away the potential of food. When freed from obsession and rigid rules, food is a useful resource - not just a necessary fuel, but also a tool for connection, comfort, convenience, celebration, nostalgia and memory. Diet culture would have us believe that food is something to be controlled and manipulated, and that eating for any reason other than hunger is a weakness. But it isn’t weak; it’s human. When we deny ourselves the feeling of food satisfaction, we suppress our satisfaction in all areas of our life.

POTENTIAL

When our relationship with food becomes distorted, we spend a huge amount of time and effort attempting to regulate away our food intake. What recovery restores is the potential of food - to be more than just fuel, to be more than just the very basic. Recovery restores our potential to reconnect with food, and with all that is connected with food. We talk a lot about reestablishing our hunger and satiety cues, and satiety isn’t just a physical thing; the satisfaction of food also comes from its connection to memory, to joy, to family and friends, to our past and our grounding and our anchoring in life - all that makes us human.

This article isn't a substitute for counselling, although I do hope it helps. If this article has resonated with you, consider seeking professional support. You can work with me in London, Kent or online, by contacting me at hello@concentriccounselling.com or 07419 190930.

#edaw20, Atypical eating disorders, Diet culture recovery, Disordered eating, Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Food, Health At Every Size, Intuitive EatingVicky Bellmanatypical eating disorders, eating disorders, eating, body positivity, body image, chronic dieting, disordered eating, diet culture recovery, diet culture, #edaw20, food, Health At Every Size, Intuitive EatingComment