the story behind the Story as Medicine series…
using metaphor and storytelling to unravel eating disorder root issues and speak to recovery using a new language
Among the variety of treatment approaches that we use at ‘Ai Pono, we use story and metaphor to help patients get to the root issues that drive their eating disorder behaviors. Our unique approach is one that has been created and developed by our Director of Eating Disorder Programming, Dr. Anita Johnston. For the past 40+ years, Dr. Johnston has worked to develop this clinical approach, informed by Jungian psychology, traditional storytelling, and contemporary evidence based eating disorder treatment modalities such as DBT, to offer patients a novel way to learn about, discuss, and recover from their eating disorders.
Dr. Johnston has created this 3-part video series for professionals who want to know more about how story — and the language of story, which is metaphor — can be used in treating eating disorders and disordered eating. In these videos, she shares some of her favorite healing stories and metaphors – and pulls the curtain back to explain why and how they work with this particular population.
So long as it’s theory, it’s removed from the actual feeling…if I put it in a story form or use images, the mind may not hear it, but the body responds. And if it’s reverberating in the body, sooner or later it’s going to get through to consciousness.
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This series is intended for mental health professionals. Please do not share or reproduce the contents fo this series. Thank you in advance for your understanding!
Dr. Anita Johnson, PhD, CEDS-S
DIRECTOR OF EATING DISORDER PROGRAMMING, ‘AI PONO HAWAII
Dr. Johnston is a clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist and supervisor, working in the field of women’s issues and eating disorders for over 35 years.
She is the author of the best selling book, Eating in the Light of the Moon and co-creator of the Light of the Moon Cafe, a series of online interactive courses and women’s support circles, and Soul Hunger workshops. She is currently the Director of Eating Disorder Programming for ‘Ai Pono Hawaii eating disorder programs with virtual out-patient programs and an ocean-front residential program on Maui.
“As a clinical psychologist, I have been trained in story listening, and having been raised with indigenous methods of storytelling, it was natural for me to listen to their stories as carefully as I could, and with as much curiosity as I could muster, to find the hidden causes and meaning of this struggle.”
