Tag: family issues

Catherine and Francis are excited to welcome two guests in this episode! Dr. Jenna DiLossi, Psy.D. and Melissa Harrison, LPC, are the co-founders of the Center for Hope and Health located in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Both Jenna and Melissa bring years of experience working with individuals experiencing eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorders, and other anxiety-based disorders and behaviors. In this episode, Jenna and Melissa help the co-hosts understand compulsive obsessive disorder as it is diagnostically defined and how it may present in patients, and how OCD and eating disorders intersect. Through years of training, they discuss effective treatments for both disorders and share their insights into how individuals experiencing OCD, eating disorders, and trauma can find treatment, recovery, and lead a purposeful and meaningful life. We’re grateful they were able to join us.

Content Warning: eating disorder behaviors, obsessive-compulsive behaviors (specifically beliefs about sexual harm, accidents, and body size) weight loss, weight gain, trauma

Catherine and Francis are excited to welcome Lucie Waldman — a self-published author of the book called the Jots of Becoming, a book of her narratives and insights after fully recovering from Anorexia Nervosa — to the podcast. In this conversation, Lucie shares how the onset of her eating disorder symptoms differed from the mainstream narrative of eating disorders; how treatment was helpful and unhelpful; and how she is using her recovery to serve and help others experiencing eating disorders. As an ambassador with ProjectHEAL, she donates 20% of her book money to help provide financial support for those struggling to access care. She runs an eating disorder awareness and support account on Instagram (@lucie_shedding_layers). In addition, she enjoys speaking for other podcasts and mediums about the intersection between Judaism and Mental Health and is deeply passionate about mental health, Eating Disorder recovery, and equities in the treatment setting after her own experiences. Currently, Lucie is a psychology major with a Jewish Studies minor at Old Dominion University. In the summers, she works URJ Six Points Sci-Tech Academy-East doing writing and mental health and wellness for the camp community. In the future, she wants to continue work in the Jewish and Mental Health field by becoming an Eating Disorder therapist and hopefully opening her own treatment center. We’re excited to have her on the show and are grateful for her insight and story!

To further connect with Lucie or learn more about her book, visit her here:
Instagram: @lucie_shedding_layers
Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KH81GWB
FaceBook page for Jots of Becoming: https://www.facebook.com/JotsofBecoming/

Catherine and Francis are thrilled to welcome Melissa Bernstein to the program! Along with her husband Doug, Melissa is the Co-Founder of the toy company Melissa & Doug, which has created over 5,000 children’s products and sold billions of dollars of toys since its inception. Raised by educators, Melissa and Doug started the business in their garage in 1988, and they’ve been on a mission ever since to provide open-ended, inventive, non-technologically driven playthings for young children. Throughout Melissa’s remarkable career, she kept secret her lifelong battle with severe depression and anxiety and an early life experience with an eating disorder. She reveals her struggles in LIFELINES, her first book, which she wrote to help others who are also suffering. Melissa’s book heralds the launch of LifeLines.com, an online ecosystem she and Doug are underwriting to support those seeking support, guidance, and community on their mental health journeys. Through the Lifelines community, Melissa’s goal is to show individuals that they are not alone.

We hope you tune in to this vulnerable and remarkable sharing of a life full of struggle, strength, experience, and hope.

CW: suicide ideation, depression, anxiety, eating disorder behaviors

Catherine and Francis are excited to speak with Kelly Davidson, RDN, a Nutrition Therapist working with individuals experiencing eating disorders, having done so at the inpatient, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient levels of care. Her approach towards nutrition is from a Health at Every Size® lens and she is passionate about fighting weight stigma and the negative messages of diet culture. In this episode, Kelly talks through what a RDN’s role in an individual’s eating disorder treatment and recovery looks like, the physiological and mental consequences of undernourishment, and how her complicated and and times harmful relationship with food and body motivated her career choice. Kelly completed her B.A. at Rutgers the State University of NJ and her dietetic internship at Rutgers School of Health Professions. You can follow Kelly on Instagram @kellyd.rd

CW: eating disorder symptoms and behaviors, weigh gain/loss in the context of treatment of an eating disorder, fat phobia, diet culture, body dissatisfaction