Face to Face with EDs: Joanna Poppink Interview, part II

Today’s post is a continuation of our fascinating interview with Joanna Poppink, a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist specializing in the area of eating disorders.

You can visit her at www.eatingdisorderstoday.typepad.com and www.poppink.com.

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… continued from 2/7/2008 …

Breaking the Mirror (BtM):

Why do you feel that therapy is critical to successfully overcoming an ED?

Joanna Poppink (JP):

The eating disorder develops as a way for the person to cope with life. In life many situations challenge all of us to rise to the occasion.

But the person with an eating disorder has great deficits in her ability to cope. Her normal human developmental that would lead her to being a mature adult capable of coping with life’s challenges – or at least most of them – got stalled. Some of her development stopped. It’s as if her developing self got blasted with buckshot. She’s got lots of holes of varying sizes in her psychic structure. When she reaches inside to come up with the emotional strength and psychological stability to stay present for reality, and think and feel at the same time, she finds nothing. The eating disorder exists to fill in those holes.

Many women report bingeing or doing excessive exercise before going on a date or an interview or taking an exam or meeting a client. The eating disorder behavior plugs in the inner gap.

For eating disorder recovery to be solid and lasting, the developmental process has to get picked up where it was left off. As far as I know only deep and consistent psychotherapy with someone knowledgeable in these areas can create an opportunity for that work.

BtM:

What should a person with an ED look for in a therapist? How will he/she know if it’s a “good match”?

JP:

Let’s assume that every psychotherapist interviewed is fully licensed, well educated, experienced, ethical, and within reasonable geographic distance for keeping appointments.

For a prospective patient to make a good choice she needs to rely on her inner knowing. I’m speaking with a precise meaning here. The right brain, the right hemisphere of the brain, will recognize the right hemisphere in the other’s brain and will know if this is a match. This is a non verbal part of the brain.

If you are looking for a psychotherapist, when you are in his or her presence, you will feel something. You will feel in your body and in your emotions.

You can tell from the psychotherapist’s body language, facial expression, tone of voice and the look in his or her eyes if this is a person who is willing to care and willing to connect with you. You might feel afraid, but not of the psychotherapist. You might feel afraid because with this psychotherapist you feel safe enough to feel afraid.

Don’t choose a psychotherapist because you want to be understood. Choose a psychotherapist who you believe wants to understand and be there for you.

You might know from the first phone call. You might know from the first visit. You might not be sure until five face to face appointments. Trust your inner knowing, your right brain, your imagery and dreams, the feelings from your own body. You’ll know if you are both there, present for each other, in the service of your recovery.

BtM:

Your blog, Eating Disorders Today, is very informative… what do you hope your words are able to do?

JP:

Over the 25 years I’ve been in practice I’ve received countless requests for information about how to recover from eating disorders and how to get help.

The quality of help available to eating disordered people today has increased tremendously. But the illness, in my opinion, is outpacing treatment.

I’m still receiving requests, and those requests are often embedded in a stories that show lack of knowledge about what causes and contributes to maintaining an eating disorder.

I’m hoping that I can bring more clarity to people who are bewildered by their own actions. I’m also hoping that clarity will help bring them to a realistic first step in moving toward genuine recovery.

In my mind I see the university student who is bright, has dreams and goals and who is on the verge is flunking out because the eating disorder can’t support her through the academic process and the stress is too much for her.

I see naive parents who have no idea that the environment they are creating for their child can contribute to creating an eating disorder.

I see women who have lived with their eating disorders for 10 to 20 years and more and who are afraid to believe there is still real hope for recovery.

I see women in beautiful homes filled with beautiful things who are throwing up daily and don’t know how to recreate their lives in a healthy way.

I see women who have found ways to limit the acting out of the eating disorder food related behaviors and remain isolated. These women deprive themselves of relationship nourishment, drain themselves of energy in giving to others, often have an exploiter and even a stalker in their lives. They pour themselves into work related activities and are emotionally bereft. After the food behavior ended the all or none, binge and purge, deprive and restrict style of living remains.

I hope my stories and my continued learning can reach these people and help them make a positive turn in their lives.

BtM:

Any final thoughts for readers of Breaking the Mirror?

JP:

Yes. In terms of body image and body expectations, and in the interest of love and Valentine’s Day, try this exercise I give some of my patients.

Forget the mirror. Forget TV, movies, magazines, billboards, posters, book covers, window display and more.

Take some time every day to look at real people on the sidewalk, in shops, on buses, in the market,
everywhere people go.

Look for couples who seem to love each other and have a life together. What couples are holding hands with each other? What couples are being nice to their children together? What couples are smiling at each other or in intimate conversation about something?

And what do these people look like? You might feel more inspired and free when you see the real people who have the loving relationships in this world.

If any of your readers do this exercise I hope they will write in their discoveries. I’d love to learn about what they feel about what they see.

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My sincerest thank you to Joanna! Please stop by her site, Eating Disorders Today, and let her know how much you appreciate her spending time with us!

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There’s still time to enter Breaking the Mirror’s “24 Hours of Body Love” challenge, not to mention our fabulous “Fall in Love… with Yourself” contest!