64. When Words Fail and Bodies Speak with Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, ABPP, FIPA, CEDS-S

Understanding Disordered Eating

Emotions that aren’t expressed through words don’t just fizzle away…they get channeled through the body and our bodies and behaviors will do the expressing for us. So what in the WORLD do we do about it if we're not interested in having an eating disorder do the communication for us?

Tom is a psychologist and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Supervisor. He’s a psychoanalyst and chairman of the Department of Psychology at Golden Gate University. He has published several articles and books, the most recent (and my favorite) being Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak.

He is on the Scientific Advisory Council of the National Eating Disorders Association, faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology. He is also the Assistant Clinical Professor at USFC’s Medical School, and finally, he has a private practice in Berkley, California.

So, he’s just a little bit busy.

In this episode, we talk about what psychoanalysis and deep work therapy are. We break it down in easy-to-understand terms, discuss why it’s actually helpful, and most importantly, how it can be helpful to YOU.

We’ll take the most complex ideas about psychoanalysis and break it down in ways that help you start to think creatively about your own life, your relationship with food, and your recovery.

Tweetable Quotes

“If we don’t have access to words and images and narratives, then the feelings have to go somewhere else. Where else can they go? They go into the body and behaviors.” – Tom Wooldridge

“One way to think about eating disorders is that people have feelings they don’t have conscious awareness of… but those feelings still have to be regulated, and one way they can be regulated is through a binge, through a purge, through restriction.” – Tom Wooldridge

“If somebody is in a place of starving themselves, even to the point of potential death, what is their underlying emotional reality? It’s very painful, and it’s hard to meet it with our own open-heartedness. If we [therapists] can do that (which is not an easy thing to do), we can really start to understand that person from the inside.” – Tom Wooldridge

Resources:

Tom Wooldridge’s Website

Tom Wooldridge’s Books:

Eating Disorders: A Contemporary Introduction

Understanding Anorexia Nervosa in Males: An Integrative Approach

Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak

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