counseling

Many people work incredibly hard to lose weight. They diet, exercise, struggle and sacrifice to become a more fit, healthy individual. They might do so with a support team, use Weight Watchers, follow South Beach, or create their own plan. They often find, though, that once they’ve lost the weight, their spouse of significant other is mad, upset or incredibly enough, jealous. They might experience unkind comments, sabotage with former “favored” foods, and even accusations of infidelity and betrayal.

Don’t laugh – it happens more often than you might think. How can you handle such an uncomfortable situation at a time when you really want to feel supported and encouraged?

During session the other day, a client stated that one of the reasons he/she first started counseling was because if you do not do anything differently then nothing will ever change. I am always proud when a client owns such a statement and even more so in this case because I believe this client has never heard that from me, even if it is a foundational belief that I share. I am certainly not the only change professional that holds to this idea and you have probably heard variations of the same theme from several sources. I recently read about an extreme use of this idea in the book When You Are Engulfed by Flames by David Sedaris. David writes that when he wanted to quit smoking, he needed to shake up his schedule and break his routine, so he moved to Japan for a while.

Exercise can be an important part of mental health treatment. Often those experiencing difficulty with anxiety can benefit from regular cardiovascular exercise, which allows the opportunity for the body to learn recovery from arousal. On the other hand, yoga has been researched as a treatment for PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. In two studies, the PTSD sufferers that were taught and practiced yoga experienced greater symptom reduction than those that were only a part of more traditional treatment.

Yoga is used as a relaxation technique because it focuses the mind and slows down the body. Simply learning to control your own breathing can allow you to feel more in control of yourself.

Why would a mental health therapist write and talk about nutrition, exercise, and weight loss? Believe it or not, these are very common subjects in group and individual therapy, as well as coaching. One of the reasons I have chosen to use a sliding-fee scale rather than insurance reimbursements in my private practice is to allow my clients to focus on the goals that are most meaningful to them. Weight loss and health improvement are very important goals to many, allowing them to increase energy and improve self-esteem.

Improving physical energy habits, including sleep, diet, and exercise, is often the first line of attack against the most common mental health concerns of anxiety and depression. Often, counselors must address such topics as part of a treatment plan when a client experiences the common side effect of weight gain as a result of taking medications to fight depression, bipolar disorder, psychotic symptoms, etc. In some cases, anti-depressant medication may be an optional tool to allow a client the extra boost needed to do the therapeutic work that can bring him or her out of that depression.