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About 13% to 21% of American teens experience an eating disorder. The onset can begin as early as age 9. Throughout her years as an eating disorder specialist, Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti has had many parents attend joint sessions in hopes of helping their child thrive. But there is one thing they will not do: let go of their own disordered eating behaviors and diet mentality. Can your child recover—can they learn to listen to, trust, and respect their own body—when the adults around them are actively disrespecting and ignoring their own?
“Recovery from an eating disorder is not an individual issue,” says Dr. Biasetti. “It is a cultural and familial one. Our culture, with its obsession with thinness and ‘health at any cost,’ shapes families and their belief systems. Those beliefs are then passed down, generation after generation. Teens need role modeling to develop their growing sense of self-identity. Asking them to change their behavior while the rest of the family’s behavior stays the same creates an incongruence that works against their healthy self. It starts with the family system learning to re-embody. Not just the child.”
Dr. Biasett is a somatic psychotherapist, transpersonal psychologist, licensed clinical social worker, eating disorder specialist, and certified yoga therapist. In her new book,Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm: A Somatic Guide to Forgiving and Healing Your Relationship With Your Body, she shares research-based practices to lead you out of your critical mind, soothe your nervous system, and reclaim your presence, intuition, and trust in your body’s wisdom.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann Saffi Biasetti, PhD, LCSW, C-IAYT, is a transpersonal psychologist, licensed clinical social worker, and certified yoga therapist. She specializes in helping individuals heal their relationships with their bodies, food, and sense of self through somatic therapy, yoga therapy, and embodied self-compassion.
Dr. Biasetti is the creator of the Befriending Your Body Program, a somatic, self-compassion-based recovery program for disordered eating, and the author of Befriending Your Body: A Self-Compassionate Approach to Freeing Yourself from Disordered Eating and The Awakening Self-Compassion Card Deck: 52 Practices for Self-Care, Healing, and Growth. She contributed the chapter “The Process of Self-Compassion in Eating Disorder Recovery” to Grounding Psychotherapy in Self-Compassion.
Dr. Biasetti consults and lectures extensively on somatic psychotherapy, embodiment, polyvagal theory, and interoceptive awareness in the context of disordered eating and eating-disorder recovery. Additionally, she serves as an instructor with the Center for Mindful Body Awareness and the Self-Compassion in Psychotherapy (SCIP) Program. A featured Professional Education Systems Institute (PESI) presenter, Dr. Biasetti has appeared on multiple podcasts and trains professionals through the Befriending Your Body (BFYB) somatic certification training program.
Dr. Biasetti maintains a private therapy and consultation practice based in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she integrates mind-body modalities to facilitate holistic healing and personal growth. On any given day you can find her practicing and teaching yoga and meditation in her community and enjoying her family, friends, nature, animals, music, and embodied living.
Connect with Dr. Ann Biasetti:
Website: www.anembodiedlife.com
Instagram @anembodiedlife
Facebook: @AnEmbodiedLife
