Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Eating Disorders: Motivation, Psychoeducation and Body Image

In this course, Dr. Elisaveta Pavlova (Ph.D., Certified Intuitive Therapist for Eating Disorders, M.A. in Counselling Psychology, President/founder of UNIKAL) emphasises the importance of understanding how eating disorder clients frequently have ambivalent motivation towards change. Dr. Pavlova works with the transtheoretical Stages of Change model to suggest techniques, matched to the client’s stage of change, to enhance motivation. Psychotherapy is an essential aspect of ED treatment and Pavlova outlines the highest-priority categories of this to attend to. Her third objective for the course, providing specific techniques to modify clients’ body image, is complex; thus, Pavlova introduces concepts such as Set Point Theory to use along with various techniques that help ED clients to attain a more realistic appraisal and acceptance of their body shape.