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Italia.NEF

This 8-week support group is for US college students and post-graduates studying or living in Europe who want to enjoy their abroad experience, continue healing from disordered eating, and find community and support.

Food & Recovery Support
While Abroad

This group is a wonderful way to engage with others and find community as you live abroad, while also continuing recovery from disordered eating.​ 

Topics covered in group sessions:
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  • Navigating the transition to living and studying abroad.
  • Connecting to food culture and using food exposure to build a healthy relationship with food.
  • Managing triggers unique to the abroad experience, including culture shock and cultural differences around body size, weight stigma, food, language, and more.
  • Finding satisfaction as you learn about new foods and continue building your capacity for eating well.
  • Learning how to use gentle, embodied movement as you engage in new communities and places.
  • Bringing home what you learn from your experience to continue finding purpose & living life on your terms.
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Listen to the NPRD Podcast episode to learn more!
"The group sessions with Kate were enormously beneficial in so many ways. I had recently moved abroad to begin a new job, which came with tons of cultural and personal shifts. Kate's belief in us created a space where I could be vulnerable, more gentle with myself, and challenge behaviors and beliefs that were no longer serving me. The various assignments and resources she provided were amazing tools that I continue to return to whenever I need a reminder or words of encouragement. Kate has a deep interest in getting to know who her clients are beyond their eating disorders. She's been instrumental in awakening in me a different way of viewing myself and the world, which I will forever be thankful for. 

- E

About the group:

Where & When: The group will meet virtually via HIPAA- compliant Zoom once a week for 8 weeks starting mid October. Group sessions will be 1 hour, 30 minutes. Specific time and day will be determined based on attendees' availability.

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Who: This group is inclusive of all genders, identities, and abilities. Group will be limited to 6 individuals to create a welcoming and supportive environment. See below for more info on who the group is best for.​

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What we'll work on: We will start sessions with a grounding exercise, then move onto reflective check-ins, and focus each week on a topic that intersects food/exercise/body image and your individual experience abroad- all to work towards continued healing and recovery. I use the 5 E's as a framework for our work together - Engage, Explore, Envision, Experiment, Evolve. There will be opportunity for engaging activities during group to build community and healing. You will be able to utilize strategies discussed between group sessions and resources will be provided to assist you each week, through google drive.

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Facilitator: Kate Sweeney, MS, RDN, LDN is an eating disorder dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor 11 years experience in treating and preventing eating disorders within college health. Along with a member of University Counseling Services at Boston College, she co-developed and co-led the Food, Mood & Health Group for students struggling with binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa, which resulted in attendees reporting reduced symptoms post-group. Kate has also developed peer-to-peer body image and exercise group coaching curriculum for health coaches.​

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Cost: $425/400€ for 8 weeks. You can pay in full or in two installments of $212.50/200€.​​

““Being far from anything familiar—culture, language, community—it felt necessary to make sure I didn’t struggle in any unnecessary way with my relationship to food and body. Having started therapeutic work in the United States, I thought that it would be difficult, or even impossible to continue working on this relationship while abroad. With this group, I was able to ground myself in a weekly routine where I could connect with and hear from others who also struggled, in ways both similar and different than my experience. It made me feel less alone, especially when confronted with how hard I found it to make a new community in a foreign country. It made me appreciate the ways in which my experience abroad could teach and has taught me to explore new foods and to understand movement in new ways. To me, I found the discussion some of the most reflective work I had done to break down my disordered eating, and to acknowledge how much I was growing in the process.”

- M

 

This group IS for you if:

  • You are a college student or recent post-grad studying or living abroad in Europe.

  • You have a history of chronic dieting, disordered eating or an eating disorder.

  • You would like support for continuing recovery while abroad.

  • You want to meet others with similar challenges, and have community.

  • You are motivated to use the study abroad experience to grow around food, nutrition, movement and body image.

  • You have a treatment plan.

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This group is NOT for you if:

  • You have been recommended to not go abroad because of challenges around food and/or mental health concerns.

  • You have never gotten help before for your disordered eating.

  • You have no treatment team or treatment plan post-abroad.

  • You are using disordered behaviors to a degree that impacts your ability to live day-to-day.

This group was such a helpful way to connect with students abroad who were struggling in the same way I was. I really enjoyed discussions with a like-minded community and it made me feel less alone during my time abroad.

- Gretchen, Studying in Scotland

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