Listen to us talk about our work on 'Good Enough Counsellors'
During Jo's counselling training, she became more curious about the stigma that weight still had amongst therapists despite the focus on awareness of their own prejudices. She undertook research as part of her MSc and discovered that few therapists are critical thinkers about their bias towards fat bodies. There is a deeply ingrained conditioning and internalisation about fat bodies and this goes unchallenged in most parts of society - leaving therapists unaware they have a positive bias towards thinner clients and judgement of fatter ones. Often it isn’t understood the many subtle ways it seeps into the work.
A couple of years later, Jo published the research findings in an article in Therapy Today which was read by Cat whilst she was training as a counsellor.
They connected through the article and now have joined forces to develop this training about anti-fat bias and body acceptance primarily to ensure therapists understand the relevance and importance of fat oppression in therapy; to understand how values and attitudes about fat in our society can affect the ability of therapists to remain non-judgmental; and to become more curious & anti-oppressive with clients of all sizes.
Holding the workshops have uncovered the need for the personal understanding and growth needs to happen for counsellors before they look at the client side of the work so we have created two workshops to allow for an initial space to confront and challenge your own beliefs and attitudes about fat bodies and cultivate better self-image and a more balanced relationship with your body.