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The Importance of Spirituality in Treatment
Contributed Article by Staff of Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center
Human beings are not one dimensional creatures; every person is comprised of a body, soul and spirit. Taking all components of the individual into account when providing eating disorder treatment ensures the best possible chance for real recovery.
At Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center, the goal is to provide spiritually conscious psychological care. Margaret Nagib, PsyD, Spirituality Clinical Coordinater, and Todd Warren, Spirituality Coordinator, oversee this critical component of faith in treatment for eating disorders.
Dr. Nagib came on board in July 2011 to expand the parameters of the Christian program. This includes adding a number of experiential, process, and educational groups to the existing spiritual treatment. This is in addition to individual, family and pastoral counseling.
Women and girls come to Timberline Knolls from throughout the country and all walks of life. Many of them have abdicated all personal power to the eating disorder. We show them that it’s not feeding them at all. What they are really seeking is something that is bigger and more loving than themselves, said Dr. Nagib. We help them to find that in God, in a loving higher power that’s not going to kill them, but quite the contrary, it’s going to help them to flourish and grow and have abundant lives.
Todd is a nationally-known songwriter, recording artist and ordained minister. He conducts group sessions with residents in which he discusses aspects of spirituality, plays music and sings. Because women and girls come from diverse backgrounds and belief systems, he strives to meet each woman or girl where she is at and create a safe environment of trust. Primarily through song, he encourages residents to explore the spiritual aspect of their being and get in touch with a power that is greater than themselves.
What Todd wants most to convey is two-fold. He wants each woman and girl to recognize that she has incredible value and worth; she doesn’t have to earn or work for it, she has it simply because she exists. Second, that a higher power exists and is willing to extend a limitless amount of grace, mercy, compassion and love to each woman and girl that everything needed for complete healing is not only available, but available in abundance through her higher power.
In the 12-step program at Timberline Knolls, residents learn that freedom from addiction or disorder requires certain behaviors such as honesty. Through the music and insights of individuals such as Todd Warren and Dr. Margaret Nagib, residents also discover true healing and recovery is absolutely possible with belief in and reliance on a higher power.
Find programs for eating disorders with spirituality components in our directory.
Published Date: October 11, 2011
Last reviewed: By Jacquelyn Ekern, MS, LPC on June 4, 2012
Page last updated: June 12, 2012
Article Contributed by our Sponsor ~ Timberline Knolls Treatment Center
Published on EatingDisorderHope.com, Eating Disorder Information
