Desperately Seeking The Truth
Fran Weiss , LCSW-R, BCD, DCSW, CGP
As appeared in Dan's Papers Summer, 2004
Losing weight is a national obsession and a challenge for most of us. Every season there's a new diet that promises to be the magic bullet. Many people-the psychologically well-equipped, who can regulate themselves, or those blessed with an efficient metabolism-do find some combination of eating differently and exercising more that works for them. But for others the challenge is agony.
Obesity is now considered by many professionals as a chronic medical disease. The good news in this is that many health insurance programs are beginning to cover obesity treatment, allowing access to many who couldn't otherwise afford it. The bad news is that emotional causes and solutions for weight gain are being ignored in favor of often dangerous quick fixes. Bariatric surgery, which uses various techniques to seal off parts of the stomach or prevent the absorption of food, is increasingly popular. Surgery may be appropriate, even miraculous, for those who have dire medical or bio-chemical problems. But even with improved surgical techniques, the life-long side effects and management required are tremendous. If being overweight is unpleasant, consider dizziness, nausea, gallstones and uncontrollable vomiting.
Such extreme treatments were devised for a reason. Americans are fatter than ever and getting sick from it. Yet often the surgery is more cosmetic than life-saving-or the life to be saved is that part of us still unreachable by scalpel. Women remain disinclined to like or accept what they see in the mirror, and their discontent is spreading to an ever larger number of men, and more disconcertingly, children. In many cases discontent is far too mild a word. Thousands of people wake up daily inside a body they hate, a mind torn by the anguish of self-loathing. The attempt to shed pounds has become a vicious internal struggle they feel they can neither control nor understand. Many have gone to countless weight control programs, to the best physicians and nutritionists, but in the long run failed. Even those who succeed often find that their self-perception hasn't changed. They still feel unattractive, afraid or ashamed. Theirs is a hollow victory.
Fran Weiss has been a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City for over 25 years. Fran works in many areas, but her main focus is on people who have serious problems with weight regulation-those who repeatedly self- sabotage and don't know why. Among the questions she asks these patients are: Is there a hidden gain to being or perceiving yourself as fat? Does extra weight provide a feeling of protection? Is it a kind of armor? Is it a way of controlling mood, or hiding from your sexuality or sexual identity? Do you use food and your body as a way of telling a story you have no language for?
Fran explained, "Often people's internal world, constructed from a legacy of long ago experiences, is what keeps them from using tools of diet and exercise information to achieve their stated goals. They are trapped in the past, unable to move forward. This causes enormous frustration."
Fran is a resource person on women's health issues, weight regulation, and body image for TV networks, The New York Times, and periodicals ranging from Woman's Day to The American Journal of Psychotherapy. She has been the senior psychotherapy consultant at The New York Obesity Research Center and its clinical arm, the TVI Center for Nutrition and Weight Management, and for the NIH funded Look Ahead Study and the Diabetes Prevention Program, all at St. Luke's -Roosevelt Hospital. She is also on the faculty at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
Fran has developed The Body Image Transformation ExperienceTM. B.I.T.E. is a two part workshop, each part consisting of twelve sessions. The first part is short term psychotherapy focusing on people's eating experiences, self- perception, motivation and ambivalence to change. The second part is more intensive and experiential. Participants make drawings of how they perceive themselves now, of their ideal self, and how they imagine they are seen by others. The drawings are often surprising, uncovering unconscious beliefs and past traumas that contribute to current weight problems. Each session also incorporates a half hour of gentle T'ai Chi and Alexander movements specifically designed for overweight people and led by a certified instructor. These guided movements are important in helping people to reconnect with their bodies in a loving manner-in the process finding power they didn't know they had.
B.I.T.E. is for people who have learned that the quick fix doesn't work, who understand that their emotional life may get in the way of whatever diet or exercise regimen they follow. It provides a supportive environment for those who have lost weight, yet still see a ghostly fat person in the mirror; and for those who sense danger in being their new, thinner self.
"Unless you can integrate your external and internal worlds, you'll continue to have hollow victories and pseudo cures," said Fran. " B.I.T.E. works to effect inside and outside change."
For more information visit: www.FranWeiss.com.