Services
Body Image Therapy
Making peace with the body you live in, separate from what it can produce, score, or weigh.
The mirror is rarely the real problem
Body image distress can exist entirely on its own, without an eating disorder attached to it, and it deserves treatment either way.
For a lot of people it is not really about appearance at all. It is about control, or worth, or belonging, or the quiet sense that the body is something to be managed rather than lived in. Sorting out which of those is actually driving things is most of the work, and it is usually not the one you would have guessed.
What we address
Common threads
- Constant body checking and comparison
- Avoiding mirrors, photos, or certain clothes
- Body changes through injury, aging, or retirement
- Uniform and team kit distress
- Weight stigma and past medical experiences
- Social media and comparison spirals
- Body talk in your family or friendship group
- Feeling at odds with a body that is otherwise capable
My stance
Health at Every Size, without pretending it is easy
Neutrality before love
Body neutrality tends to be a more honest first destination than body love, and it is a perfectly good place to aim.
Being able to get through a day without your body being a topic is a genuine outcome. Loving it is optional, and demanding that of yourself often becomes one more standard to fail.
Where this overlaps
If your body image concerns run alongside eating or exercise patterns, we address both together rather than treating them as separate problems, because they feed each other.
For athletes in particular, a body that is evaluated for its output creates a specific kind of distress, and that gets its own attention here.
The least interesting thing about you is your body.
What treatment involves
How we actually work on this
Body image work is often slower and less dramatic than people expect. There is no single session where the mirror stops mattering. What changes is how much authority you give it.
Naming what the body is being asked to do
Early on we look at what job your appearance has been assigned. For some people it is a proxy for control in a life that offers little. For others it is the last measurable thing after an injury or a retirement took the rest away. For athletes it is frequently tangled with performance, because a body that gets evaluated for output starts getting evaluated for everything.
Until that job is named, any progress tends to get undone the first time you have a hard week.
Interrupting the behaviours
Body checking, mirror avoidance, comparison scrolling, and clothes that only fit on good days all keep distress alive by feeding it fresh evidence. We reduce those deliberately and gradually, and we plan for the discomfort that follows rather than pretending it will not come.
Rebuilding the relationship
Then the slower work: relating to your body as something you live in and through rather than something you present. Function over appearance, values over rules, and enough flexibility that a photograph or a bad fitting-room mirror is an annoyance rather than a referendum.
Questions
About body image therapy
Related, but not identical. Body dysmorphic disorder is a specific diagnosis involving preoccupation with a perceived flaw that other people barely notice. Many people who come here for body image work do not meet that threshold, and some do. If you are looking for a body dysmorphia therapist, this is a reasonable place to start, and I will tell you plainly if a different level of care would serve you better.
Start where you actually are
Book a free consultation. No requirement to feel positively about anything yet.
Book a free consultation