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When we’re struggling with eating disorders, there’s a great deal going on beneath the surface.
Eating disorders are about much more than food.
Most of the time, eating disorders are about deeper, underlying issues with self-worth, shame, control, anxiety, and perfectionism.
Food is just the way we cope with those difficult feelings when we haven’t learned effective coping skills and or how to deal with these underlying issues in ways that help us grow and heal.
That’s where we come in.
At My LA Therapy, our eating disorder specialists will help you re-establish a sense of connection to yourself, discover a deep foundation of self-worth, and heal from the deeper trauma and pain that have led you to this point.
We will help you learn to feel grounded and safe in your body and to find a sense of empowerment in the way you approach your life and emotions.
And we’ll remind you that you are not defined by your disease.
That means your “Eating Disorder” is only a part of you.
It’s the part that’s telling you that there is something inside of you that needs healing and care.
When we understand that, we can see our symptoms as invitations to find greater freedom as we heal and grow.
Your worth is not your weight or the number of calories you consume in a day.
Your value is not your body or how you look.
We are here to help you discover a sense of self-worth that is much deeper than that.
We are here to help you create a solid foundation of who you are at your core, to restore hope, and to discover new possibilities for your life.
You are destined for a life much greater than your struggle, and by working together you will ultimately regain a trust in yourself that enables you to express exactly who you are without apology or fear.
We’re so confident in our extraordinary therapists that we guarantee you’ll love your match – or your money back.
At My LA Therapy, our highly-vetted Anxiety experts are selected not only for their clinical acumen but for who they are.
During EMDR, the therapist and client work together to identify target memories to focus on.
In addition to visual memories of the trauma, there is often a negative self-belief attached to the event.
For example, the client might believe, “I am unlovable” or “I am a weak person.”
The traumatic memory may continue to live on through dreams, flashbacks, or generalized anxiety.
EMDR involves bilateral stimulation with either rapid eye movement, touching, or auditory sounds.
It’s been found that this repeated desensitization technique re-processes the memory of the trauma and the negative beliefs associated with it.
EMDR can help you reprocess what happened to you and target other symptoms of the trauma as well, such as anxiety and depression.
The goal of treatment is to eliminate the discomfort due to unprocessed memories, to teach self-regulation techniques to manage related anxiety, and to change negative self-perceptions into believing in your own sense of safety, control, and responsibility.
The EMDR Institute uses a helpful metaphor to explain its technique: EMDR healing works in a similar way to how our bodies heal after an injury.
After getting a cut or a deep wound, our body starts to repair itself.
However, there might be a “foreign object” that enters the wound, or you might repeatedly get injured at the same site, which makes it even harder for the wound to heal.
Once you are able to remove the “foreign object” so that you are not becoming continuously re-injured, your body can begin healing again.
This is the same way EMDR acts with our minds: Once we remove any barriers to our healing, our body can begin the process of recovery and transform the trauma into healing.
EMDR therapy involves eight phases in order to heal from psychological trauma.
PHASE 1
In Phase 1, our therapist gets your complete history. It can happen in one or multiple sessions. Our therapists work with you to identify and recognize any memories that may have caused you distress in the past, and anything that might be causing you distress right now. You might even work together to identify skills that you would like to develop in the future.
PHASE 2
In Phase 2, we focus on new ways of handling stress and begin developing a toolkit of effective coping skills. Our therapists will work with you to teach you any techniques you can use to reduce your stress in between your therapy sessions.
PHASES 3-6
In Phases 3-6, you will acknowledge and identify three different things: “the vivid, visual image related to the [traumatic] memory,” a negative belief about yourself associated with that memory, and other related emotions and body sensations that come up surrounding the memory.
You will also be asked to identify a positive belief that you have about yourself. Your therapist will then guide you through bilateral stimulations, which can include tapping, listening to sounds, or eye movements. You will then be instructed to let your mind go and notice the sensations around you. This phase will be complete when you do not report any more distress when you think of your targeted memory.
PHASE 7
Phase 7 is called closure, and this is when you will be asked to document, over the course of a week, any stressful situations that arose subsequent to the sessions. This will also help you implement the stress reduction techniques and coping skills you learned during Phase 2.
PHASE 8
During Phase 8, you and your therapist review and highlight all the progress that you’ve made and prepare to implement any techniques you learned to effectively navigate situations that may arise in the future.
Therapy can successfully improve your life by helping you minimize your anxiety, identifying and changing underlying thought and behavioral patterns that contribute to your struggles, and providing you with strategies to decrease discomfort while restoring an overall sense of peace.
To experience true and lasting joy in our life, we must face and conquer our pain by healing our underlying trauma and confronting our fears.
EMDR is an evidence-based, scientifically-proven intervention that has been demonstrated by research to be effective in addressing anxiety disorders, phobias, depression, in addition to PTSD and various forms of abuse and trauma.
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We’ll provide you with a personalized match with the perfect LA therapist who specializes in your exact concerns and fits your style, schedule, and budget. We guarantee you’ll love your therapist — or your money back.
During your call we’ll deep dive into your unique needs to provide you with a personalized match you with the perfect therapist for you in Los Angeles.
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I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
