Offering body-positive somatic psychotherapy means working with a Health at Every Size philosophy.
Health at Every Size means-
Weight Inclusivity: Accepting and respecting the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes and rejecting the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights.
Eating for wellbeing: Promoting flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control. (I am not a dietitian or nutritionist).
Life Enhancing Movement: Supporting physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities, and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose.
Respectful Care: Acknowledging our biases, and working to end weight discrimination, weight stigma, and weight bias. Providing information and services from an understanding that socio-economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities.
As a fat, queer, non-binary person who strives to not hate their body, I find it incredibly important to offer psychotherapy that does not perpetuate the harm caused by cultural biases, stigmas, and medical misinformation.
I strive to help clients connect with and value their own bodies, regardless of size, ability or any other body-image related concerns. I also help clients to explore the impact of messages received about the body, food, and weight from family, community, and our broader culture. I assist clients in discovering what health and vitality means to them, independent from these harmful messages, and finding their own resources, and resilience and meaning based on the inherent wisdom of their bodies.
Working with internalized fat-phobia is not only about working individually on one’s relationship to self. Weight bias and fat phobia are social justice issues affecting us all, regardless of size. Fat Acceptance is a social justice movement aimed to ensure fat people have equal rights and access as straight sized people. Part of unpacking internalized fat phobia and ableism is recognizing the scale and depth of the issue, exploring our relationship to the systems or oppression at large, and recognizing that these messages didn’t come from within us.