Open Sky’s Approach to Disordered Eating presented at NATSAP Annual Conference.
Download the lecture here.
Open Sky Wilderness Therapy’s Emily Demong, LCSW and Heather Menzie, MA, presented a lecture entitled “The Comprehensive Treatment of Disordered Eating: How to be Effective in Therapeutic Programs” at the annual conference of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP) in La Jolla, California on Friday, January 29th, 2010.
The lecture was an interactive, educational and experiential program targeted to mental health professionals that work in clinical settings similar to Open Sky. The presentation showed how a comprehensive approach to disordered eating similar to what Open Sky employs can be highly effective in a variety of treatment settings.
“Body image issues, poor relationship to food, and unbalanced nutrition are impacting our students more frequently than ever. We have seen an increase in this trend with both our male and female populations. Our students are bombarded with negative marketing and media influences all the time and I feel we have an obligation to help them reconnect with a deeper sense of themselves. At Open Sky, we have found that education around how food choices influence their physiological and mental functioning can be a springboard to deeper discussions regarding the importance of self care,” says Emily Demong, Open Sky’s Clinical Director.
The lecture discussed the latest research findings for treating disordered eating along with Open Sky’s successful experience treating it in a holistic wilderness therapy setting. The lecture began by reviewing the myriad of ways that disordered eating can manifest clinically. With this foundation, Emily and Heather then focused on how to identify emerging disordered eating patterns and discuss the clinical interventions that are most effective for the varying populations that suffer from it.
Heather, an adolescent therapist at Open Sky believes the NATSAP lecture was informative and will also have immediate practical application for the professionals in attendance, “We hope they left the session with a concrete understanding of what disordered eating is and how to best treat disordered eating through the use of comprehensive clinical interventions in both wilderness and residential settings.”
Emily Demong is a licensed clinical social worker and serves as Open Sky’s Clinical Director. In addition to disordered eating, Emily’s areas of clinical expertise includes depression, anxiety, grief and loss, trauma, self-harm, and adoption and attachment issues. Her clinical approach is informed by cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, family systems, and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) theories. Heather Menzie is a master’s level therapist who serves as an adolescent therapist working with both boys and girls. Heather supports her students in healing from past traumas, anxiety, and depression through mind/body-based practices and experiential therapy. Heather encourages her students to empower themselves through learning and practicing stress management skills and assertive communication tools.
Open Sky has been a member of NATSAP since its founding in 2006. To Learn more about NATSAP, go to their website www.natsap.org
