Action Methods for Healing Eating Disorders – Why Experiential Methods Work

by Linda Ciotola, M.Ed., TEP

For those suffering with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder, compulsive over-eating, and food addictions putting these struggles into action externalizes them and gives voice to inner conflicts and feelings through enactment. To begin with, action methods provide valuable tools to assess, build and strengthen the therapeutic alliance necessary for effective treatment based upon creation of a supportive therapeutic relationship and safe environment. 

The eating disorder behaviors such as binging, purging, starving, compulsive exercise, along with body image obsession are often the expressions of unspoken feelings for which the obsessions and compulsions about food, weight and appearance serve as a distraction.

Anxiety and other emotions may be pushing the person out of “the window of tolerance” (Dan Seigel).  They reflect a dysregulated nervous system which the eating disorder behaviors temporarily suppress.

By engaging the body and brain in enacting the root cause of this dysregulation (with the necessary safety measures in place first, like concretizing strengths and resources) the client / protagonist is able to release the suppressed feelings, accurately label the underlying issues, and gain action insight that reveals the connection between the behaviors and their underlying causes.  Hence, revealing the roles that the eating disorder has been holding in the body.

New, healthy ways of coping can be learned, rehearsed and internalized thereby nurturing resiliency and post-traumatic growth.

From: Healing Eating Disorders with Psychodrama and Other Action Methods, Beyond the Silence and the Fury by Karen Carnabucci and Linda Ciotola.

Linda Ciotola is a M.ED, TEP. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist located in Grasonville, MD. With a focus on education, group facilitation, and lifestyle counseling she offers workshops, trainings and conference presentations.