Abigail Natenshon offers the following services to health professionals

• In-service professional trainings
  
• Private consultation
  
• Group consultation to agency staff
  
• Supervision for practicing health and mental health professionals
  
• Supervision for Masters and PhD graduate students in the health and mental health fields.
  

Seminars Offered for Health Professionals

1. Pediatric Guidelines for Treating the Eating Disordered Child
    
   Pediatricians play a pivotal role as part of the multi-disciplinary treatment team for childhood clinical eating disorders. Medical care for eating disorders requires a unique skill set, a unique relationship with both patient and parents, a resourceful and creative use of self in monitoring and protecting the physical well-being of the afflicted child, and a cooperative commitment and availability to the professional team. Though not formally trained in medical schools to handle this complex, lethal and multi-faceted disease, pediatricians are the first line of defense for parents seeking medical care, guidance, and the educative support they need to shepherd their child through diagnosis, treatment and healing. This lecture offers strategies for evaluating the child, educating the family, launching the treatment process and sustaining the focus of recovery process.
    
2. Nutritional Guidelines for Treating Eating Disorders
    
   The most lethal of all the mental health disorders, eating disorders adversely impact every aspect of a person's life... nutritional, physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, social, all of which must be understood and addressed, even within a course of a treatment focusing primarily on food and eating. When the diagnosis is a clinical ED, healthful nutrition is but one aspect of a recovery that requires a committed collaboration of a multi-disciplinary team of professionals including nutritionist, physician, psychotherapist and parents and that saves lives. This lecture offers strategies and treatment tools for nutritionists and dieticians who no longer need to feel unprepared and intimidated about managing hard-to-treat cases of anorexia and bulimia. Through developing unique skills and a novel use of self in pivotal relationships with clients, families and collaborating health professionals, nutritionists become instrumental in saving lives.
    
3. Empowering Parents as Recovery Advocates

   In a call to action, Abigail H. Natenshon, MA, LCSW, GCFP inspires and empowers parents of children, adolescents and young adults with eating disorders to become self-advocates first, ultimately enabling them to become advocates for their child and a timely and effective recovery process. Claiming that parents are the “magic bullet” in bringing about successful treatment outcomes, Abigail points to the familiar and gentle skill and art of listening as the parents’ greatest resource for intervention, once refined and honed. As a coach and advocate to parents, she encourages parents to listen actively, purposefully and with the heart to:

   • Themselves, and to their capacity for response-ability
     
   • Their child, to help her better listen to herself
     
   • Their child’s professionals, to be assured that they are listening to them.
     
   • And the unique nature of the eating disorder recovery process, which is at times incomprehensible and counterintuitive and always deceptive.

   Her message to parents enhances and streamlines the work of health professionals as well, dramatically cutting the recovery time and the cost of treatment services to these children; the insurance industry, too, benefits by parents becoming as informed as they can be.  Click for more details on this workshop.
    

4. Picky Eating Children and Children with Feeding Disorders
   
   Infants and toddlers who struggle with picky eating or selective eating do not have eating disorders at all, as we know them. They suffer from feeding disorders which are the result of neurological hard-wiring problems, suffering from conditions that might include sensory integration disorder, non-verbal learning disorders, or Asperger's syndrome. These kids are most productively treated by highly trained occupational therapists and speech therapists, as well as by Feldenkrais Method therapists, who uniquely access and reorganize brain structure and function, creating new pathways and connections through highly specific, gentle and pleasurable movements of the body.
    
   Many picky eating children grow up to become picky eating adults...there are thousand upon thousands of picky eating adults (see www.pickyeatingadults.com) who are misdiagnosed.... told by health professionals that they are stubborn, have control problems, or are the products of poor parenting. Picky eaters grow up to be isolates socially, compromised in most if not all aspects of life that involve eating and interpersonal relationships. Please read the articles featured on my web site, www.empoweredparents.com, about picky eating and feeding problems.
    
5. The Clinicians’ Unique Use of Self in Eating Disorder Treatment
   
   In schools and agency settings, in hospitals and residential communities, in private and group practices, eating disorders in young and old alike are becoming ever more prevalent. Too many practitioners and physicians feel inadequately prepared and/or reluctant to provide responsible care for these high risk, hard-to-treat and typically resistant cases. Many feel compelled to refer these cases out, and many find that appropriate resources do not exist.  Effective treatment requires a specialized skill set as well as a therapeutic relationship based on the unique and novel use of the therapist’s own core-Self. A quality therapy relationship can be transformational, enhancing the youthful client’s capacity to develop into an emotionally secure, highly functioning and gratified adult; at the same time, it can save lives and bring families closer together.
   
   
6. Creating Alliances for Recovery: Partnering with Parents and Other Health Professionals to Heal Eating Disordered Children
   
   This address will discuss the professional’s role in mentoring parents of eating disordered children to become a proactive and integrative part of a multi-disciplinary treatment effort, healing and supporting their child through a timely and lasting recovery.
   
   
7. Empowering Mothers Through the Child’s Recovery: A Workshop for Professionals
   
   When disempowered mothers have the opportunity to create a constructive alliance with their child through appropriate involvement in the child’s eating disorder treatment and recovery efforts, their own personal growth typically parallels that of their recovering child. This workshop explores the proposition that promoting appropriate, empowered and proactive parenting during a child’s eating disorder recovery empowers mother, child, the recovery process, and the parent/child relationship, while preventing relapse.
   
   
   
8. Lessons That Save Lives - What Schools Can Do; Educators as Advocates for Eating Disorder Recovery
   
   86 percent of eating disorders occur in children under the age of twenty. There is a far greater likelihood that early warning signs of these secretive diseases will appear in school and at home before they do in the at the doctor’s or therapist’s office. It is critical that school professionals understand that eating disorders are less about food and more about how a student attempts to confront and respond to stress, anxiety and the exigencies of life. The earliest warning signs may be seen in a student’s affect, thinking, mood, capacity to learn, and work ethic…even before they begin to take their toll in physical appearance. Recognizing and defining early disease are the first steps in prevention and healing. Prevention around athletic training and events is also critical.
   
   
9. Reconnecting with the Body and the Self: Treating Body Image Disturbances Through the Work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais
   
   The Feldenkrais Method is a technique that enhances movement, self-esteem and neurological function. This work can enhance recovery and a positive body image in patients suffering from eating disorders and the post trauma of sexual abuse and self-mutilation when used as an adjunct therapeutic technique in conjunction with more traditional psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, family systems-oriented psychotherapy and group therapy. This multi-media presentation includes case vignettes and an experiential Feldenkrais demonstration lesson including all participants.

Workshops for Parents and Other Non- Professionals

1. NEW!!! Eating Disorder Survival for Kids and Parents: Empowering Parents as Recovery Advocates
   
   Abigail's potent message is as healing for parents as for their children afflicted with lethal disorders that maim and kill 6 to 13 percent of their 11 million victims, 87 percent of whom are under the age of twenty. Her message to parents enhances and streamlines the work of health professionals, dramatically cutting the recovery time and the cost of treatment services to these children. CLICK HERE for full details on this exciting and new workshop.
   
   
2. Interrupting the Parent-to-Child Cycle of Unhealthy Eating: Raising Our Youngsters to be Healthier Eaters than We Are
   
   We are all a little eating dysfunctional now and then… It is not uncommon, however, for parents who struggle with body image concerns or otherwise “benign” eating dysfunction to pass these issues and concerns on to their children, where they may take root as life-threatening eating disorders. The “sins of the fathers,” however, need not be visited upon their children; parents who are informed, self-aware, and meaningfully present in a child’s life can raise their child to enjoy a greater sense of freedom and well being around eating, exercise and weight management issues than they may have been able to achieve themselves.
    
     
   
3. When Eating Attitudes, Fears and Foibles Determine Food Choices
   
   How we FEEL about what we eat is even more central to our health and well being than WHAT we eat. Examine and understand your own attitudes and beliefs about food and eating, weight management, and body image, recognizing how these may impact your own and your child’s eating and body image health. By becoming aware of such attitudes and beliefs and mindful of their consequences in raising our children, we take charge of our own lives, our parenting, and the physical and emotional well being of our children. By rectifying misconceived beliefs and attitudes of their own, parents become healthier and more comfortable with their own eating and body image.
    
    
   
4. Eating Disorders in Young Children; What They Mean for Parent and Child
   
   4 and 5 year olds who exhibit food fears, weight-related rituals, or compulsive eating habits are most likely not eating disordered, but may be susceptible to becoming so. Parents need to recognize, understand, and effectively respond to the child's anxiety and neediness as communicated through food abuse, quirks and disordered eating, in order to prevent the onset of an eating disorder and raise an emotionally healthy child. Recognizing that eating disorders are the product of "nature," (heredity, inborn temperament, anxiety and compulsivity,) as well as "nurture," (the child's modeling after parental attitudes and behaviors, beliefs and lifestyles) enlightened and empowered parenting can virtually "immunize" a child against these diseases.
    
    
   
5. What’s Normal, Anyway? Learning to Eat Healthfully in a Food Phobic World
   
   In our “thin-is-in” fat phobic society today, normal eating does not necessarily imply healthy eating. 50% of young college women are disordered eaters, and 80% of eighth grade girls have been on diets. Foolproof formulas offered through the current diet trend of the week only compound our confusion. Becoming “food smart” is not about learning to calculate grams of fat or studying nutritional labels. It is a much more basic process of becoming knowledgeable, self-aware and trusting of one’s own ability to exercise judgment through instinct and intelligence.
   
   
   
6. “Eating Disorder Proof” your Child - Keys to Preventing Eating Disorders in Healthy Children
   
   Eating disorders are, relatively speaking, rare. The misguided attitudes about food and weight management that lead to eating dysfunction however, are not. Kids learn these attitudes largely from their parents, through what parents say and what they do, through role modeling and imitation. Attitudes and issues are passed down as a legacy from one generation to the next. When parents understand, model and teach the art of healthy eating, children also learn invaluable life lessons about self-respect, exercising sound judgment, and skillful problem solving.
   
   
   
7. Body Image Concerns: A New Face to Childhood Fears
   
   It has been reported that 80% of girls in grades three through six have bad feelings about their bodies, an issue diverting attention from schoolwork and friendships. Body size acceptance is not related to weight or actual body size, but to self-esteem and emotional health. The true indicator of a good body image is good self-esteem – not the ability to fit into size 2 jeans. It is up to parents to insure that children grow up with all the emotional tools and resources they need to love and accept themselves and their body. Body image concerns may be precursors to eating disorders. Even when they do not lead to clinical disease, they deserve attention so the child can learn to enjoy a healthful relationship with food.
   
Other speaking topics include:

• Adult Eating Disorders: Intruders into Life’s Daily Function
  
• Taking an Eating Disorder to College
  
• Eating Disorders on the Job
  
• An Eating Disordered Choice of Life Partner
  
• The Impact of Adult Eating Disorders on Parenting Males with Eating Disorders
  
• Eating Disorder Recovery: Life Training 101
  
  

Conferences and Keynote addresses

National Eating Disorders Association Supporting Your Loved One: Coping and Resources Oct. 24, 2003

International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals Foundation Symposium 2003: Maximizing Success: Integrating Current Advances in the Treatment of Eating Disorders: Feldenkrais Strategies for Reconnecting with the Body and the Self

Eating Disorders Education Organization EDEO of Canada Annual Conference 2001; Keynote speaker: Encouraging Positive Body Image Within the Family
Demonstration for professionals; a “fishbowl” multi-family support/psychotherapy group

Illinois Association of School Social Workers Conference 2001
Eating Disorders in the Schools: Teaching Lessons that Save Lives

Renfrew Foundation Perspectives on Feminism Conference 1999
Empowering Parents through Eating Disorder Psychotherapyherapy



Lectures, Professional Trainings

Northwestern University:
The Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies;
The Masters Program in Counseling Psychology May 2003
The Therapist’s Unique Use of Self in the Treatment of Eating Disorders

Chicago Jewish Women’s Foundation:
Eating Disorders; Is it a Jewish Phenomenon?

The Union of American Hebrew Congregations:
Unique Professional Intervention with Eating Disordered Patients; A lecture for mental health professionals and educators, March 2003

“Abbie - Just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you, on behalf of the Jewish Family Network. We felt the conference was a huge success and your expertise and information certainly contributed to that. I heard so many positive, glowing comments. I know how difficult it is to squeeze a lifetime of knowledge into one hour, but I felt you did a great job of offering an overview and created a thirst for more information.”
MT, JVS director



Consultations with educators, school personnel, clinicians, patient educators, and graduate students.

New Trier High School: Winnetka, Illinois
The Committee to Create a Body Image Intervention Program for the Student Body

Lake Forest Pediatrics: Lake Forest, Illinois
A staff presentation for nurses, patient educators and physician assistants. Handling the eating disordered child and parent