Meandering Thoughts of a Psychologist

At one point in my life, I declared that I did not want to have biological children and instead wanted to adopt.   Part of this decision was based on the fact that my mother grew up in foster care, and I wanted to give back in some way because of my gratitude to those who chose to love her. The other reason for this choice was my fear that I would not be a good parent. I naively thought that if I selflessly gave to a child without parents that regardless of my shortcomings as a parent, I would be providing love the child might not otherwise have. Then I met my husband, fell in-love, and surprise we had a baby…and then surprise a few years later we had another baby. Today was one of those challenging days as a parent where I began to think THANK GOD I AM NOT A CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST! After thinking about this statement and why I even felt the need to declare that I’m not a specialist in the area of child psychology, I had another thought…this is going to be even more difficult whe...

Good Review about Inside Out: http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015/07/01/inside_out_how_realistic_is_the_psychology.html I would add to this review that the movie is also good for educating parents about the usefulness of all emotions. As parents, it is very important to mirror the feelings of our children and allow them to talk about their experiences rather than just encouraging them to "be okay." Regarding eating disorder treatment specifically: individuals with EDs are oftentimes highly attuned to the feelings of others, but disconnected from their own internal experiences. When an individu al neglects their own feelings and focuses on the emotions of others, food becomes a way of managing emotions (e.g. distraction by focusing on rigidity of restricting food, eating to numb out, purging as a way to feel pain or difficult emotions, etc.). Eating disorders are oftentimes more strongly tied to affect regulation than body image issues - which is surprising to most p...