Ep 07: Eating Disorders with Dr. Anna Brown

Are you or someone you know dealing with an eating disorder? Do you often not know where to even begin helping yourself or someone else? Joining us today on the show we have Dr. Anna Brown, Clinical Director at Eating Recovery Center. Eating Recovery Center (ERC) is an integrated, health care system dedicated to the treatment of serious eating and related disorders at any stage of the illness. With eating disorders being so prevalent in our daily lives and being so common in America with over 30 million people struggling with it, we must educate ourselves on the topic. Dr. Anna is here to help us understand eating disorders and the psychology behind them. We discuss “invisible” eating disorders, how to identify eating disorders, recovery from eating disorders, and how ERC can help. For all this and more, keep listening!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Dr. Anna shares her background and how she started working with eating disorders.
• What ERC has to offer and different in-patient and out-patient programs available.
• Identifying eating disorders in others.
• The link between eating disorders and athletics and training.
• Recovery from eating disorders and how ERC is there to provide a source of hope.
• Letting go of the familiar and go into the unknown.
• Finding the right counselor to help deal with an eating disorder.
• Perceptions about eating disorders.
• What a day at ERC looks like for Dr. Anna.
• Virtual ways to seek help through ERC.
• The benefits of mindfulness in the recovery of eating disorders.
• Involving families in the recovery process and having them eat meals together.
• Exposure therapy incorporated into care at ERC to help people deal with life after recovery.
• Shifts that have taken place in eating disorders over time.
• Misconceptions surrounding eating disorders and why there is no one specific cause.
• Different types of eating disorders.
• Social media awareness groups to help teach people how to handle social media and the effect it has on their lives.
• Dr. Anna shares the story of Shannon Kopp and her road to recovery.

   

Tweetables:

“Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, all different kinds of presentations.” — Dr. Anna Brown [0:07:53]

“We really take a stance of, families are not to blame.” — Dr. Anna Brown  [0:39:24]

“There is no one specific cause for an eating disorder.” — Dr. Anna Brown  [0:40:08]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Eating Recovery Center

Shannon Kopp

Pound for Pound

Say it Brave