Mind Body Balanced - Counseling for Eating Disorders in Carmel and Monterey California

Eating Disorder, Anorexia, Bulimia, Compulsive overeating, Weight Management, Body Image, Nutrition, Support Group, Psychotherapy, Counseling, Help, Carmel, Monterey Peninsula, California

Kirstin Lyon Psychotherapist Eathing Disorder Psychotehrapy

Psychotherapy with Kirstin
Kirstin Lyon, LMFT, MFC33530, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specially trained and certified to treat eating disorders. She is currently a board member of the Monterey chapter of the California Association of Marriage Family Therapists and has been working with individuals, families and schools on the Monterey Peninsula for 17 years. Her formal training in the treatment and prevention of eating disorders is augmented by the experiences gained through work spent on her own personal recovery from an eating disorder. She is passionate about her practice, working to treat eating disorders in a culture that continues to perpetuate them.

Personal Statement

I welcome to my practice any person who struggles with issues related to eating, weight or body image. I am devoted to helping my clients understand and re-evaluate their relationship to food, their bodies and their lives through a more thorough understanding of who they are as physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual beings. I explore my client’s world, offer hope, and identify resources for sustained recovery from the detrimental effects of eating disorder behaviors.

Together we work to understand the client’s puzzle of personal eating issues and restore a positive relationship with food. Disordered eating is seen as a destructive voice, determined to sabotage the voice of health we knew as young children. I help my clients put food and this voice in perspective -- a part of life, not the whole of it.

Through treatment, people learn to gradually regain trust in their bodies, as once experienced in an earlier time of life. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Assertiveness Training, Family of Origin work and Family Therapy help to explore their personal histories and what contributes to current disordered eating and body/weight struggles.

Continual attention and development craft an inner intuitive voice that eventually replaces the dominant voice of the eating disorder. We work on incorporating self-nuturing behaviors and reincorporating those once abandoned. Clients discover interests other than food and weight; these interests gradually replace the overwhelming eating disorder paradigm. I have faith that anyone can recover with perseverance, insight, and support.

A disordered relationship with food, weight or one’s body hinders one’s ability to live life to the fullest. Incrementally, through encouragement and acknowledgment, the eating disorder voice and behaviors gradually recede into the background, and recovery becomes reality.

What is Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is often referred to as “talk therapy”, or counseling. It is an active process between a clinician and client, in which a supportive and comfortable relationship is recommended for the most effective outcome. Psychotherapists are trained professionals who work to help individuals, couples, families and groups better circumvent or replace destructive behaviors and to recognize and effectively cope with feelings and gain insight – all of which facilitate behavioral or emotional change.

I am a psychotherapist who specializes in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders. My clients often have a distressing relationship with food, weight or their bodies that has become harmful to their day-to-day functioning. Often their relationships, jobs and overall health are affected; we work together to understand how the various struggles began and how they are currently maintained in their lives.

We identify their personal histories, including family and extended family relationships, their genetic histories, and how relationships and society might be influencing their actions. We uncover eating disorder behaviors and rituals, and determine what past and present needs are being satisfied by disordered eating. We then strategize to discover things that might be substituted.

I work with clients individually or with partners, in families or groups, and collaborate with other psychotherapists, dieticians, physicians, psychiatrists, school personnel and occasionally with other persons in order to create a supportive “team” for my clients.

The goal of treatment is to help each of my clients bring his or her life back into balance, often through the use of a multidisciplinary team of professionals specializing in disordered eating. Every client’s recovery is approached differently, as each person is seen as an individual with unique needs.

Kirstin Ocheltree Lyon, LMFT
MFC33530
27871 Berwick Drive
Carmel, CA 93923
(831) 626-4337
Kirstinlyo@aol.com