Eating Disorders and Self-Harm Therapy in Collingwood, Ontario
Support for food, body image, emotional pain, shame, control, self-harm, and coping patterns that feel hard to change.
We offer in-person therapy in Collingwood, with virtual sessions available across Ontario.
Our work helps you understand what these patterns may be protecting, build enough internal steadiness to stay with difficult emotions, and work with deeper roots so old ways of coping do not have to take over in the same way.
How therapy can help you:
Work with what is underneath the behaviour
Explore what may be underneath restriction, bingeing, purging, body control, or self-harm, and begin working with the deeper patterns that keep these ways of coping in place.
Build more steadiness with emotions
Develop the internal resources to notice and stay with difficult feelings without immediately needing to shut down, punish yourself, or regain control.
Create change at a deeper level
Work with protective parts and unresolved experiences so old survival patterns can soften and you have more room to respond differently.
“When did coping start to feel like it was hurting you?”
It may not have started as something you meant to rely on. Maybe it began as a way to feel in control, quiet the pain, punish yourself, numb out, or get through a moment that felt impossible.
Over time, the thing that helped you survive may have started taking more from you than it gives back.
Eating disorders and self-harm are not signs that you are broken. They are signs that something inside has been carrying more than it knows how to hold.
Therapy offers a place to slow down, understand what is happening underneath, and begin finding safer ways to be with yourself.
The goal is not simply to understand why the behaviour exists or force it to stop. Therapy helps you build more internal safety, communication, and choice while working with what is underneath the pattern.
What is eating disorder and self-harm therapy?
Eating disorder and self-harm therapy helps you understand and work with the emotional pain, shame, fear, control, numbness, or overwhelm that may be living underneath behaviours that are difficult to stop.
At CPYC, understanding the pattern is only part of the work. We also help you develop enough internal safety to stay with difficult feelings, listen to the parts of you that still believe these behaviours are necessary, and work with deeper experiences that may be keeping old survival patterns in place.
We help you understand and work with:
- what food, body image, control, self-harm, or punishment may be trying to manage
- how trauma, attachment wounds, anxiety, depression, shame, or stress may be connected
- parts of you that may still believe old coping patterns are necessary for safety or survival
- deeper emotional and nervous system roots that may continue to trigger these behaviours
What Brings People to Therapy for Eating Disorders and Self-Harm
- Restricting, bingeing, purging, or feeling out of control with food
- Fear, shame, or distress around body image
- Self-harm, urges to self-harm, or using pain to cope
- Feeling numb, disconnected, overwhelmed, or emotionally flooded
- Perfectionism, control, people-pleasing, or fear of disappointing others
- Anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, or attachment wounds
- A harsh inner critic or feeling like you are never enough
- Coping patterns that feel private, exhausting, or hard to talk about
If part of you wants things to change, even if another part feels scared to let go, that is a real place to begin.
How Eating Disorder and Self-Harm Therapy Can Help
This work is not about forcing a behaviour to disappear or stopping at insight alone. We help you understand what the pattern is protecting and work with the deeper roots that continue to keep it in place.
Understanding and Working With the Pattern
Food, body control, or self-harm may be trying to manage pain, fear, shame, numbness, anger, or overwhelm. Therapy helps you understand the behaviour while also working with what continues to drive it.
Building Emotional Regulation
We help you develop internal resources so difficult emotions can feel more possible to notice and stay with without becoming flooded, shutting down, or turning against yourself.
Working With Shame and the Inner Critic
Many people carry a harsh inner voice that says they are too much, not enough, or failing. Therapy helps you meet that voice with more curiosity and less fear.
Reconnecting With Your Body
Healing can include slowly rebuilding a relationship with your body that is less based in punishment, control, avoidance, or constant monitoring.
Working With Protective Parts
Parts of you may still believe old patterns are necessary to keep you safe. Therapy can support greater awareness, communication, and collaboration with these parts so their needs can be understood differently.
Finding Safer Ways to Cope
Together, we explore supports that can help you move through painful moments without relying on patterns that leave you feeling more alone afterward.
Repairing Your Relationship With Yourself
This work can help you relate to yourself with more honesty, compassion, and accountability, rather than shame, secrecy, or punishment.
Working With Deeper Roots
When appropriate, memory reconsolidation work can help us gently work with unresolved experiences and nervous system responses connected to current triggers, creating more room for choice when old patterns arise.
You don’t have to keep carrying everything alone.
Match With A Therapist
Tara McGee
Psychotherapist & Certified Yoga Therapist (IAYT)
Ready to take the next step?
How Eating Disorder and Self-Harm Therapy Works
Book a Consultation
Start with a consultation to ask questions, share what has been happening, and get a sense of whether this support feels like the right fit.
Understand the Pattern and Build Safety
In the first sessions, we explore what food, body image, control, self-harm, shame, or emotional pain may be trying to manage while building greater internal steadiness.
Work With the Roots of the Pattern
Together, we may work with protective parts, unresolved experiences, and nervous system responses to build more internal communication, emotional capacity, and choice when old patterns are triggered.
Frequently Asked Questions About Eating Disorder and Self-Harm Therapy
What is eating disorder and self-harm therapy?
Eating disorder and self-harm therapy helps you understand and work with what may be happening beneath disordered eating, body image distress, self-harm, shame, numbness, or control. At CPYC, the work goes beyond insight by helping you build internal resources and work with the deeper patterns and experiences that may continue to trigger these behaviours.
Can therapy help with disordered eating and body image?
Can therapy help with self-harm urges?
Do I need an eating disorder diagnosis to start therapy?
Is self-harm always connected to trauma?
What if I feel ashamed to talk about eating disorder symptoms or self-harm?
Can eating disorder and self-harm therapy support teens and adults?
Do you offer eating disorder and self-harm therapy online?
Still have questions?
“Understanding why a pattern exists is only the beginning. Therapy can help you work with what is underneath it, so old survival responses do not have to take over in the same way.”
Collingwood Psychotherapy and Yoga Centre