What Every Therapist Needs to Know about Treating Eating and Weight Issues

Therapists often encounter clients with mild to moderate eating and weight issues, less severe than anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating disorder. They emerge as minor themes that lurk behind major presenting problems such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, trauma, and marital discord; and therapists who aren't looking for them may miss opportunities.

Koenig’s book is written for practitioners who lack expertise in this area, and provides clinical strategies and therapeutic techniques to explore clients’ feelings about food and their bodies to get at the root of these issues. It includes descriptions of how food and weight problems surface in conjunction with psychological and medical conditions, as well as how they create difficulties in various life stages and situations. Packed with insights and practical tips, this unique book teaches clinicians how to help clients make peace with food and the scale and balance nutrition and exercise in a healthy lifestyle.

Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., is an expert on the psychology of eating--the why and how, not the what of it. She lives and practices in Sarasota, FL.