--- title: Home description: Internationally acclaimed recovery site focused on eating disorders, moving from fragility to power, developing confidence at work and in relationships, and narcissistic abuse recovery. Created by Joanna Poppink, MFT canonical_url: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/home-3/page-17 language: en-GB notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/home-3/page-17. markdown-tokens: 1284 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/home-3/page-17. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. ## [ Five Stages to Healing and Recovery ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/stages-to-finding-the-first-step-to-healing-recovery-and-an-authentic-life) Details Category: [Psychotherapy and Recovery Work](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/) ![1200px Bright Light Trees](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/1200px-Bright_Light_Trees.jpg) It takes many steps and blunders before we reach the first step to deep healing and real recovery. We can be in pain because we’ve lost a person or an object dear to us. We can be frightened or humiliated because our longed-for plans and expectations have crashed around us. We cry, blame others and blame ourselves. We rail at the injustice around us. But mostly, we are bewildered and thrashing blindly. Hopefully, we are not reaching for food, drugs, alcohol, dangerous relationships, and risk-taking to escape our bewilderment. Eventually, our bewilderment is so thorough that we feel forced to ask for help. Even then, we ask for help to get our world in order, to stop pain, and to regain or recreate what we have lost. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/stages-to-finding-the-first-step-to-healing-recovery-and-an-authentic-life) ## [ Cure for Boredom and Being Stuck ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/cure-for-boredom-and-being-stuck-grow-and-develop-throughout-our-lifespan) Details Category: [Psychotherapy and Recovery Work](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/) ![marigold 1503876 640 1](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/marigold-1503876_640_1.jpg) Through the course of my forty years as a psychotherapist, I have heard this question from my adult eating disorder patients. Whether they are in their thirties, forties, fifties or sixties, they ask, “Aren’t I too old to resolve this eating disorder? Isn’t it too late for me to change my life? I’m increasingly grateful for my age. My words of encouragement will not give them a believable response. But my existence as an older woman living a satisfying life does reach them. My presence gives them hope, even in their denial of hope. But what are the details that bring about healthy change? It’s not diet and exercise. It’s not medication. It’s not a physical makeover or an affair. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/cure-for-boredom-and-being-stuck-grow-and-develop-throughout-our-lifespan) ## [ Guarantee for Recovery in Psychotherapy? Find Out Here. ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/what-guarantees-recovery-in-psychotherapy) Details Category: [Psychotherapy and Recovery Work](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/) ![Guarantee in psychotherapy](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/authenticityroad-924566__480.jpg) Guarantee? My informed consent form that clients sign before working with me states that no guarantee comes with psychotherapy. Yet psychotherapists and clients strive together for healing and recovery. Five phases of the work create the strongest possibility for success. Despite the lack of a guarantee, clients have hope and willingness to work as do psychotherapists. The client puts energy and commitment into her work because she wants health, freedom and happiness. The psychotherapist puts energy into the work because she’s seen healing and recovery in others and has a growing framework of what makes recovery possible. When the psychotherapist sees the commitment of the client's energy, the psychotherapist’s commitment and energy for the client’s well-being grows and vice versa. Therapy is a partnership on the healing journey. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/what-guarantees-recovery-in-psychotherapy) ## [ First Psychotherapy Appointment with Joanna Poppink ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/first-psychotherapy-appointment-with-joanna-poppink) Details Category: [Psychotherapy and Recovery Work](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/) ![ocean waves rolling to shore 340](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/ocean_waves_rolling_to_shore__340.jpg) Your emotional waves are rolling in, but what is the shore you seek? If your life looks good, great or enviable to others, who can you trust with your vulnerabilities and secrets? You don’t want to take medication. You don’t want to be told what to do. You don’t want to isolate or use food, drugs or alcohol to soothe yourself. Yet, you know your spirit cries out for something. You need help and hope help exists. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/psychotherapy-and-recovery-work/first-psychotherapy-appointment-with-joanna-poppink)