A recipe for health: Combining expressive arts with EMDR in the treatment of eating disorders

Eating-disordered clients begin treatment with a series of unique and specific behavioral symptoms such as binge eating, bingeing and purging, starving themselves, or overexercising, that impede progress when using purely verbal therapies. The research team has found that the combination of expressive arts techniques and EMDR treatment can be highly effective in overcoming these impediments. This poster will briefly review basic knowledge and practice concerning the major eating disorders and their etiologies. We will then describe our therapeutic process that combines expressive arts with EMDR. This process includes (1) preparation of the client for EMDR treatment through the use of expressive arts techniques done in between sessions at home, (2) the use of client drawing and writing as targets when they appear to be a useful tool, (3) the use of a mirror exercise with BLS as a resourcing tool to address, desensitize and help the client reformulate body image distortion and body hatred, and (4) the reiniorcement of gains from reprocessing through the use of expressive techniques throughout treatment. This poster describes these additions to and modifications of the EMDR protocol with expressive arts techniques, as well as the results of a pilot experiment that compares outcomes for clients treated with expressive arts approaches, with and without EMDR.

Conference

English

Lauren Lazar Stern
Earl Grey

Stern, L. L., & Grey, E. (2010, September/October). A recipe for health: Combining expressive arts with EMDR in the treatment of eating disorders. Poster presented at the 15th EMDR International Association Conference, Minneapolis, MN