Inviting Culture into Eating Disorder Treatment By Ashley Acle, LMFT
Published excerpt from Gürze Salucore
Inviting Culture into Eating Disorder Treatment By Ashley Acle, LMFT
With the devastating effects of systemic racism harming our communities of color, clinicians are tasked with addressing racial inequities in treatment, psychological research, and leadership (Abrams, 2020). To do this, exploring and addressing other cultural factors (e.g. ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, education, spirituality, sexual orientation, age, ability, et.c) in conjunction with race are necessary to create and deliver socially just practices. The field of eating disorders has struggled to integrate cultural factors into treatment, while progress has been made in culturally sensitive interventions for the treatment of anxiety, depression, and suicide, among others. This article highlights how clinicians can use their own cultural exploration, self-awareness, and intentional preparation to engage when their biases contribute to oversight and, therefore, invite culture into eating disorder treatment.
