Psychotherapy Programs
STARVING AT THE BANQUET
"Starving at the Banquet" is an interactive psychoeducational program I began in the Fall of 2009 that looks at eating disorders from "both sides of the couch." It is designed to educate and begin a dialogue about eating disorders with parents, adolescents, educators, medical students, and mental health professionals. It combines my experience as a sufferer of anorexia nervosa and now as a clinician who treats individuals and families struggling with anorexia and bulimia. I have led this workshop in middle and high schools, medical schools, parent groups, University counseling centers and hospitals throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Discussion topics have included:
- What are the warning signs of an eating disorder.
- How as parents and educators can we foster a healthy body image and sense of self-efficacy.
- How can we encourage our daughters and sons to use their voices to express their needs and feelings so that they will be less likely to use their bodies in self-destructive way to express them.
- If you are an adolescent, how do you approach a friend who you think has an eating disorder.
STARVING AT THE BANQUET
"Anorexia nervosa is a greedy illness. It takes everything it can.
It becomes all-consuming and all-encompassing.
There is no space left for anything nor anyone else."
Anorexia is an insidious illness of mixed messages, inner torment, and ambiguity.
It can become a chronic and even fatal disease whereby the individual has
a falsely empowered self covered by a frail and brittle external shell.
STARVING AT THE BANQUET is my personal journey as both a patient
and a clinician in the throes of anorexia, a powerful and tenacious illness.
I embarked on this project after many years of treatment
that prolonged and at times reinforced the strength of my illness.
Over the past three years my slow ascent from under
the vise-like grip of anorexia has come as a direct result of the connection
to my own sense of efficacy, my wishes, and my dreams.
Join me for an inside view of the BANQUET table of life with all its options.
You will see why I believed that my only choice was starvation.
It is my hope that you will leave this BANQUET "full" with knowledge and possibilities.
STARVING AT THE BANQUET, FINDING THE VOICE WITHIN
In our fast-paced world teenage girls are besieged by conflicting messages and externally imposed judgements from a multitude of sources (i.e. magazines, television, internet, peers). The purpose of this group is to encourage girls to take the time to discover their own feelings and needs and to express them through journaling or other creative means. This can include writing prose and poetry, collage, and sketching.
This is a short term (4 sessions) group for all adolescent girls, not solely for girls with eating disorders.
STARVING AT THE BANQUET
FINDING THE VOICE WITHIN
In today's world, with 24 hour media coverage, a teenage girl is besieged with conflicting messages and externally imposed judgements. How should she dress? How should she wear her hair? What should she study? What is possible or impossible?
What happens to her own voice, her own hopes, dreams, and aspirations? It is easy for these things to be drowned out.
In a 4 session journaling workshop (i.e. writing prose, poetry, collage, sketching) girls from the ages of 13-18 will explore their own uniqueness and creativity and learn to listen to their own voice.
Dates: TBA
Cost: $125
This workshop will be led by Lauren Grunebaum, LCSW.
Lauren Grunebaum is a clinical social worker and the creator of "Starving at the Banquet," an interactive psychoeducational program on eating disorders. She has extensive training and experience in family, child, and adolescent therapy. Her expertise is in the area of eating disorders.
For information and registration, please call: 917-751-1412 or