Why Art Therapy for Eating Disorders? Five Ways Art Therapy can be Helpful in Your Recovery Journey
What Are Eating Disorders?
Eating disorders are complex mental health conditions that disrupt our relationships with food and body image. They can affect individuals of all ages, genders, races, and backgrounds. With high mortality rates due to medical complications and suicide risk, eating disorders are the second most lethal psychiatric issue after opioid use disorders.
Diet culture and outdated health measures, like BMI, contribute to eating disorders and perpetuate weight bias in healthcare. For example, some providers may fail to screen for eating disorders in certain demographics or recommend weight loss based solely on body size.
Eating disorder behaviors range from restrictive habits, like skipping meals or avoiding food groups, to impulsive actions, such as binge eating or purging. Common diagnoses include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. Many people may not fit neatly into one diagnosis but still struggle with chronic dieting or disordered eating. Eating disorders often co-occur with anxiety, depression, and trauma.
Treatment Approaches
Recovery is deeply personal, and therapy is often a key tool. Therapy provides a safe space to address body image, reduce food-related anxiety, and build self-worth. Treatment is available at various levels of care, from residential programs to weekly outpatient sessions. Alongside therapy, many individuals benefit from working with registered dietitians, medication management, and regular medical checkups to monitor complications like bradycardia or abnormal blood sugar levels.
Many therapeutic approaches can be helpful in treating eating disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help people realize how their thoughts and feelings affect their relationship with eating. The Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach, also known ,as parts work, can help with understanding how eating disorders connect with traumatic experiences.
What is Art Therapy?
Art therapy combines creativity, psychological theory, and lived experiences to foster healing. Grounded in the belief that everyone is innately creative, it is practiced by board-certified art therapists and used across many environments, including hospitals, schools, and therapy programs. Art therapy is beneficial for folks of all ages and is helpful in addressing eating disorders, trauma, anxiety and self-esteem issues.
Artistic background is not required to benefit from art therapy. It can be a great option if you’re looking for an alternative approach to counseling. It’s a non-verbal way to explore emotions and experiences through images, shapes, and colors. The process bridges the brain’s emotional and cognitive centers, uncovering insights that may not emerge in traditional talk therapy. Art integrates both sides of the brain by bringing thoughts/feelings to the surface and connecting them to our conscious awareness. Art therapy can stand alone or complement other therapeutic approaches.
Sessions are collaborative and tailored to your goals. Typically, you’ll begin with an art directive and spend time creating, followed by a discussion about the artwork. This process helps you articulate emotions and experiences previously difficult to express.
How is Art Therapy Helpful for Eating Disorder Recovery?
Processing Emotions
Recovery involves facing intense emotions, such as anxiety, shame, or guilt, which eating disorders often suppress. Art therapy provides a less intimidating way to access and process these feelings, allowing buried emotions to surface. It’s common and understandable to feel guarded in therapy, and art therapy might help explore complex feelings safely. Visualizing emotions makes them easier to understand and address.
Challenging Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a common trait in individuals with eating disorders, particularly anorexia and orthorexia. It stems from a need for control and fear of mistakes. Art therapy encourages embracing imperfection. There’s no “right” way to create, which helps reduce fear of failure and build tolerance for mistakes in a supportive environment. Whether using structured materials like pencils or unstructured ones like paint, the creative process gently disrupts perfectionist tendencies.
Enhancing Mind-Body Connection
Art therapy helps with mindfulness and body awareness. Eating disorders and trauma can dull awareness of bodily signals like hunger or a racing heart. Learning to notice these physical sensations can help us understand what emotions we’re experiencing. By understanding our emotions, we can better take care of ourselves.
Creating art is a grounding process. It requires a level of focus and attention on the here-and-now. The experience of using materials like clay or crayons engages multiple senses, connecting the mind and body.
Reconnecting With Your True Self
Eating disorders often overshadow your identity and disconnect you from your values. Societal pressures, such as diet culture and systemic biases, further alienate folks from their authentic selves. Art therapy helps reclaim this sense of self.
Body image problems might range from negative views about individual parts of your body to judgements about your whole character. Through creativity, you can explore the origins of your eating disorder and reframe harmful narratives. Art fosters self-expression and joy, offering a pathway to rediscover what matters to you. Addressing body image through art can be less daunting than talk therapy, allowing for compassionate self-reflection and healing. Art therapy can be the first of many steps in addressing body image issues, ultimately serving as a jumping off point for ongoing discussion in future therapy sessions
Externalizing the Eating Disorder
Eating disorders don’t define who we are even though it can feel that way sometimes. Art therapy helps separate the eating disorder from your core self. It can be a great way to see the eating disorder as one part rather than your whole being. Visualizing the eating disorder creates distance and offers new perspectives. Artmaking provides an opportunity to explore both struggles and successes in recovery. It opens doors to discussions that can be revisited in future therapy sessions.
Conclusion
Recovery is unique to each person, and therapy is just one of many resources. Organizations like the National Eating Disorder Association offer free support groups and other tools. Staying connected with loved ones and your community builds resilience.
If you’re curious about how art therapy can support your recovery, consider scheduling a free 15-minute consultation to learn more.
Resources
American Art Therapy Association
Drawing from Within: Using Art to Treat Eating Disorders by Lisa Hinz
