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Healing Your Hungry Heart

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Here you will find articles and links that describe experiences and issues in treatment and how eating disorder symptoms are experienced and affect psychotherapy.

 

To contact Joanna, to make a psychotherapy appointment in Los Angeles or to arrange a video Skype consultation, write: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone (310) 474-4165.




Talking about Sex E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Monday, 12 March 2012 16:36

What would you like your mental health clinician to know about helping you understand and resolve your troublesome sex life? Please login or register to see the full article

 
Getting Through Obstacles to Eating Disorder Recovery E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Sunday, 04 December 2011 19:44

My blog post about obstacles to eating disorder recovery is bringing in some wonderful and thoughtful comments that are taking the form of a conversation. It's heartwarming to  see you supporting each other through the nitty gritty of eating disorder recovery work.

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Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast with Joanna Poppink PDF Print E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Tuesday, 18 October 2011 11:24

Eating disorder recovery KNews podcast: Charlie Dyer interviews Joanna Poppink on his radio show, Conversations with Charlie Dyer.

Charlie is a great interviewer and read Healing Your Hungry Heart: recovering from your eating disorder.  In our interview we hit the main points that are so important for people to understand about eating disorder recovery, whether it's you or someone you love or a phenomenon in our culture.

Please let me know what you think of of this 20 minute interview:  Agree?  Disagree? Add more to the conversation?

 
More on Eating Disorder Recovery and Issues of Abandonment E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Sunday, 20 February 2011 19:14

country_bridgeMy conversation with PTC on BabblingCats raises more thoughts about what can trigger abandonment feelings in an woman during eating disorder recovery treatment. Making a referral can bring up abandonment issues yet a referral is more like a bridge to take you across an impasse.

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Adult Women with Eating Disorders: Going for Happiness E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Thursday, 14 October 2010 21:40

In the midst of your efforts to heal from your eating disorder I ask you to take a few moments and answer this question:  What is happiness to you?

happiness_images Years ago I worked with a woman in my practice, 38 years old, struggling with binge eating and purging, married to an emotionally abusive man, mother of two small children.  After a year of being in psychotherapy with me she said, since she had stopped purging she intended to stop her therapy.  She wasn't in pain anymore.

I asked her, "Is absence of pain enough?"  Please login or register to see the full article

 
Frightened Child Imagery: 10 tips for healing E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Wednesday, 08 February 2012 10:15

 

An emotionally painful recurring image of a frightened child described in a comment on my site stays with me.  I'm responding here  because this type of imagery affects many people in or near doing deep recovery work. Eating disorder behaviors create a false promise of rescue. What follows are ten tips for genuine resolution.

The commenter wrote:

if I could just rid my mind of the image of myself as a little girl..it's a constant image...I am alone, I am scared and I am silent. It feels like Please login or register to see the full article
 
Obstacles to Eating Disorder Recovery E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Monday, 28 November 2011 12:13

I believe in what I'm doing - providing genuine methods to heal from eating disorders that honor the individual. As I do my psychotherapy work, and outreach to let others know of my work, I discover new obstacles to recovery.

My challenge is to break free from my traditional ways of speaking and writing. I need to go more to the core - not the core of the eating disorder - but the core of the obstacles that prevent people from getting on their recovery path.

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Yes, You Can Recover From an Eating Disorder E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Friday, 29 April 2011 13:42

You can heal your way, develop your way, grow your way out of an eating disorder.  Solid recovery from an eating disorder is not about fighting the disorder and winning.  That gives an incorrect impression that you remain the same and the eating disorder leaves.  Solid recovery occurs when you no longer need your eating disorder to cope with the stresses and challenges in your life now or in the future.

To make that happen, recovery work involves developing your mind, heart, body and soul from a fragile and insubstantial state to a more mature and capable condition that is your authentic you.

The New York Times, in the April 25, 2011 issues, ran a pessimistic article that risks leaving readers with the idea that you cannot recover

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Eating Disorder Recovery and Issues of Abandonment E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Sunday, 20 February 2011 15:01

please_dont_leave_meTouching story of felt abandonment on Babbling Cats2.

"I feel like I'm being abandoned by [my therapist].  This is what I don't get.  She obviously thinks I'm not doing well at all and need more help, or something.  So why, when someone is "not well"  (her words, not mine) would you, a T, stop working with the person?  If you're in the field to help people, why would you abandon them when they apparently need you the most?  This is what I don't get.  It's like, "You're doing badly so I can't work with you anymore."  She didn't say that, but that's what it's like.  Does that make sense?  Also, if she knows that things we'll just get worse without her, why would she fire me?  These people are supposed to be helping people, not letting them go when things go a little south."

As a psychotherapist working with people with eating disorders, here is how I answer her question.

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Fiery Passions and Lessons from Our Sun E-mail
Blog - Psychotherapy and Recovery Work
Written by Joanna Poppink   
Monday, 11 October 2010 21:25

Our_Sun_2180main_MM_Image_Feature_22_rs4

This new NASA image of our sun is like an inspirational mandala, particularly designed for you to help you in healing from your eating disorder. It shows us the fiery wonder of our personal star.

It's a mass of seething explosions, yet it holds its shape and position in space.  It consists of powerful forces that could destroy anything of mere human creation yet is the source of life for all of us on this planet.

You also contain inner seething fires.  If you have an eating disorder you

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