Breath Inside the Body: A Somatic Intervention for Disordered Eating
How can you move clients forward when they’ve spent a lifetime viewing themselves as wrong, unlovable, and unworthy of getting better?
It can feel impossible to effectively treat a client who feels like they don’t deserve to live…
… but you can learn how to effectively assess, diagnose, and develop personalized treatment plans for them in a safe therapeutic environment. It IS possible to transform your client’s shame into strength.
Watch Ann Saffi Biasetti, Somatic Psychotherapist and ED specialist, for this demonstration of a simple somatic exercise that can help clients re-connect with their long-neglected bodies and even learn to embrace, befriend, and listen to their own internal wisdom.
Practice: Breath Inside The Body
- Close your eyes.
- Notice your natural breath moving in and out through your nose.
- Hold your hands facing palms up. As you inhale, the hands move up one moving up, and as you exhale they both turn down as you imagine pressing the air down slowly.
- Repeat several times, slowing down the pressing down of the hands.
- After a few rounds, let your hands rest into one another now and just feel this touch.
- With your next inhalation, take one hand and see if you can follow your breath by noticing where you feel the breath beginning in your body when you inhale. Place a hand to that area. Notice, with each breath, where you can feel your breath the most. Move the hand around to follow it and then just allow the hand to rise and fall with the breath. After a few rounds, do the same with your exhalation. Noticing, with touch, where you can feel your breath the most and just allow the hand to rise and fall with the breath.
Ann Saffi Biasetti, PhD, LCSWR, CEDS, CIAYT, is a practicing clinician for over 30 years specializing in somatic psychotherapy. She is an eating disorder specialist, certified mindfulness teacher, Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) teacher, and Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT). Dr. Biasetti teaches in the Self-Compassion in Psychotherapy (SCIP) program, where she shares her expertise in somatic self-compassionate interventions for eating disorders recovery and serves as a consultation leader. She has led well-received retreats at Kripalu and Shambhala Mountain Center and has led professional training workshops through her Befriending Your Body (BFYB) certification program for eating disorder recovery. She is the author of Befriending Your Body: A Self-Compassionate Approach to Freeing Yourself from Disordered Eating and The Awakening Self-Compassion Card Deck: 52 Practices for Self-Care, Healing and Growth. Dr. Biasetti maintains a private practice in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Andreana Saffi Biasetti maintains a private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Andreana Saffi Biasetti is a member of the Polyvagal Institute, the Academy for Eating Disorders, the International Yoga Therapy Association, the National Association of Social Work, and the Yoga Alliance.
