“I Get It”:Why These 3 Words Should Be the Goal in the Treatment of Eating Disorders
Three simple words at the right time in the client’s recovery journey can mean all the difference: “I get it.” I get why you leaned on those eating disorder behaviors that you learned a long time ago were the only thing that could keep you safe. Validation and understanding can go such a long way towards building trust and being a true partner in this process. Clients don’t need someone to make them feel more ashamed of using the behaviors that brought them to us as therapists in the first place. Chances are your client is more than equipped to generate shame on their own, and our job is to help them process through that shame and normalize their experience of being resourceful enough to find something that at one time really helped even if it also harmed them.
Seeing a client through their pain doesn’t mean congratulating them on using a behavior they are trying to stop. It means meeting them in their humanness and finding the ways that what they have done makes all the sense in the world given what they have been and are going through. You may be the first person who has ever not blamed or punished them for doing so.
“I get it” in this context it’s not the same as saying you know exactly how another person feels. It is merely saying that their feelings and experiences are valid. Going to the point of telling someone you know exactly how they feel is invalidating their unique experience and runs the risk of minimizing. But holding space for clients’ pain and giving that some airtime before trying to rush to solutions is an incredibly valuable way to build trust and understanding in the therapeutic relationship. In fact, I would argue that rushing to solutions is never the answer, just as policing a client and withholding support when they use behaviors is also not a solution and is incredibly harmful, not only to the therapeutic relationship, but to the client’s recovery as a whole. This is something that treatment centers sometimes do under the guise of “accountability,” and it often includes pulling the client’s peers into the situation and asking them to throw the client under the bus. One sure fire way to get a client to lie to a clinician is to incentivize lying by instituting punishments for telling the truth. This also introduces more fuel to the fire in the existing power dynamic.
Therapists, if you want to create a strong alliance with your clients, the first step is seeing them, not judging them. From there, we can collaborate with them on a plan that is in line with their vision for recovery, NOT ours. Harm reduction is a wonderful vehicle for this because it doesn’t presuppose that someone has the goal of wanting to completely discontinue all behaviors today. It helps prevent complete overwhelm and shutdown through trying to do too much too fast. Harm reduction is a way to help our clients chart a path toward healing without dictating what that healing should look like, and the more ownership a client has over their own process, the more likely they are to stick with the plan.
As therapists, if we DON’T “get it,” it’s our job to find a way to move towards understanding so we can help our clients make sense of what they are going through and find compassion for their own struggles. If we can’t, how can we expect them to?
