Wanting a healthy relationship with food and your body?


While disordered eating comes in many forms, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and emotional eating, they all negatively impact a person’s quality of life. You likely have made numerous attempts to change, but for reasons that may not be clear, something keeps getting in the way. Fortunately, there is effective treatment that helps people make the changes they are seeking.

We are an interdisciplinary team consisting of a registered psychologist, Dr. Daryl Ternowski, and a registered dietitian, Kim Williams. We both have extensive training and experience treating individuals with mild to serious eating disorders, both in inpatient (hospital) and outpatient settings.

We provide psychological and dietary assessment and treatment for older adolescents and adults, women and men, who want to change some aspect of their eating and related issues.

People struggling with eating issues can often readily identify the emotional and physical costs associated with their behaviors. However, we recognize that a person’s use of an eating disorder is often an attempt to cope with life’s challenges. For example, people at times use food and weight to:

  • Distract and numb painful feelings
  • Avoid doing things that cause anxiety
  • Use shape to express distress and get noticed, or conversely use weight in an effort to feel safe by not being noticed.
  • A way of trying to feel good enough and to feel special
  • Reduce negative feelings about self

Given that people can experience both costs and benefits with the same behaviors, it is very common and normal to feel conflicted/or ambivalent about change. This may be a source of tension with people in you life as they may only see the costs of the behavior, and get frustrated when change is slow.

Thus, the work of treatment is to address the underlying source of distress and help a person develop coping skills that they feel good about.

Who we are, and why choose us.

Dr. Daryl Ternowski:

Dr. Ternowski is a Registered Psychologist (#1672). He has a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Simon Fraser University and also completed an American Psychological Association accredited internship at Vanderbilt University, TN, USA.

His clinical experience includes working as a psychologist at the Eating Disorder Program at St. Paul’s Hospital from 2004 until 2009. He now works exclusively in private practice, treating adults with disordered eating, anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. He also runs groups for individuals struggling with disordered eating. Dr. Ternowski’s clinical research has included the evaluation of the impact of exercise on psychological well being, and research into the effectiveness of a large provincial forensic psychotherapy treatment program.

 

 

 

 

Kim Williams:


Kim is a Registered Dietitian (#0799).  She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Dietetics from the University of British Columbia, and also completed a dietetic internship at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, B.C.
Her clinical experience includes working at the Eating Disorder Program at St. Paul’s Hospital from 1994 to present, providing nutrition counseling to clients in individual and group sessions. Her private practice focuses on helping people overcome a variety of disordered eating issues.  Kim has published and presented her work on eating disorders nationally and internationally, and  was awarded a Clinician Researcher Fellowship grant from the Canadian Institute for Health Research to support her research activities.

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Erin Dunn Wallden

Dr. Erin Dunn Wallden is a Registered Psychologist (#1637). She completed both her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and an American Psychological Association accredited internship at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. She also completed a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, which was sponsored by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Dunn Wallden’s clinical experience includes working as a psychologist at the Eating Disorder Program at St. Paul’s Hospital from 2004 to present, providing individual and group therapy to patients in both the residential and outpatient programs. She also has a private practice, treating adults with disordered eating, depression, anxiety, and substance use problems. Dr. Dunn Wallden’s research focuses on the applications of readiness and motivational models to the assessment and treatment of eating disorders, substance use, and health behavior change. She is currently supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

 

 

Why choose us?

Training and Experience

Each member of our group has extensive education and professional training, and are registrants in good standing with the regulatory bodies of our respective professions
 (i.e., College of Psychologists of British Columbia and College of Dietitians of British Columbia). Further, we each have extensive experience working with individuals with eating disorders in both inpatient (working with individuals recovering in hospital) and outpatient settings. The treatments we offer are consistent with “best practices,” meaning that interventions are informed by current treatment research.

 

Interdisciplinary Team

Eating difficulties are complex in that they span issues that include eating itself, anxiety, and psychological and emotional concerns. Treatment can be more effective when people are supported by a team that can address these various concerns. Further, we regularly  hold case consultation meetings to ensure coordinated and optimal care.

 

Caring and Compassionate

Finally, we are caring and compassionate. We understand the complexities related to these issues, appreciate the ambivalences that people feel around change, and recognize that change is difficult. Because of this, we find it easy to be non-judgmental in our work supporting our clients.

The reasons why issues around eating started and continue are personal and specific, and accordingly the process of treatment is tailored and specific as well.

Having said that, there are some common elements found in most people’s treatment:

  • Normalizing eating. A key part in getting better involves gradually loosening rigid rules, and increasing regular eating and variety. A common trap for people involves starting each day by eating as little as possible, inadvertently leading them to be vulnerable to making bad food choices late in the day because they feel deprived. The idea is that strict dieting makes things worse. Often, a dietitian with specialized experience in this area is extremely important.

  • Reduce the importance of shape and weight. If you are weighing yourself multiple times a day, spending hours on dieting websites and blogs, it’s probably making it harder to get better.

  • Building a life worth living. People who are recovered often talk of how having meaningful experiences (e.g., work, school, relationships, leisure) are critical to getting better.

  • Triggers and coping. A big part of treatment consists of identifying triggers that lead to disordered eating behaviors. For many, anxiety, loneliness, and boredom are triggers. The next step involves learning new coping skills. Some well researched treatment approaches called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), help people identify when they are distressed and give them the tools to cope differently.

  • Working though the issues that make a person vulnerable to disordered eating. These include fear of rejection, poor self esteem, anxiety, perfectionism, depression, unresolved grief, avoiding painful emotions, and working through traumatic experiences. The issues can relate to the way we see ourselves, others, and challenges we have in relationships.