From the Vault: The Connection Between Trauma and Eating Disorders with Heather Ferguson, LCSW [Episode 57]

Understanding Disordered Eating: Eating Disorder Recovery and Body Image Healing

While we take a little breather, we’re diving into the archives to bring you some of the most powerful, thought-provoking episodes from the past. These conversations are just too good to leave behind—and today’s is no exception.

We’re throwing it back to Episode 57, a deeply moving and intellectually rich conversation with Heather Ferguson, one of the most respected voices in trauma-informed psychoanalysis and eating disorder treatment. Heather’s insight into the nuanced connection between trauma and disordered eating is unmatched, and in this conversation, we scratch the surface of a topic that could easily fill a semester-long course.

From childhood trauma and body memory to dissociation, shame, and the slow, compassionate path to healing, this episode is a must-listen whether you're a therapist, a survivor, or simply curious about the deeper psychological layers behind disordered eating.

In this episode, we’re talking about:

• What trauma really means—including the difference between "Big T" and "small t" trauma—and how it shows up in unexpected ways.

• How the context and response to a traumatic event can shape the severity and meaning of the trauma.

• How eating disorders can act as survival strategies: tools for self-soothing, control, and numbing.

• What it means when an eating disorder serves both soothing and self-punishing functions.

• Why the healing process must include not just the mind, but the body—and how we create space for that in therapy.

• How early trauma and misattunement can shape our beliefs about ourselves and our bodies.

• How intergenerational trauma, secrecy, and silence can pass psychological pain down through families.

• Why creating a coherent narrative and reclaiming agency are essential to healing.

• How somatic awareness and slowing down automatic behaviors are key to shifting patterns of disordered eating.

• How cultural, familial, and historical narratives about food and bodies impact how trauma and eating disorders manifest.

• Why curiosity, compassion, and shared storytelling are central to transformative healing.

Tweetable Quotes

“The eating disorder became a self-management tool, a self-regulating tool, a strategy to manage states of hyperarousal and anxiety, to have a sense of efficacy and control.” – Heather Ferguson

“Most of us with a psychoanalytic frame of mind think about eating disorders serving both functions, that is, they can both downregulate and soothe the nervous system, but it can also be self-harming and self-punishing.” – Heather Ferguson

“That’s part of what gets mapped around trauma – ‘I’m bad, I deserve punishment.’ It’s illogical, it’s sort of how the psyche makes sense of this – that you are the bad one, and you somehow induce the traumatic event.” – Heather Ferguson

“The eating disorder, in a way, can be a window into understanding the trauma.” – Heather Ferguson

Resources

Heather’s Website

Heather’s email: [email protected]

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