Episode description: Research suggests that 25 to 50 percent of people with eating disorders have also experienced trauma, and that the two conditions tend to reinforce and worsen each other when they co-occur. Despite this, care is often delivered sequentially—people are asked to address one condition before they can work on the other, even though the two are deeply intertwined. In this episode of Peace Meal, Jenny Beck and M Mullan join host Dr. Jillian Lampert to introduce a new partial hospitalization program at The Emily Program’s Columbus, Ohio, location, built to address that gap. The program provides integrated, evidence-based care for adults living with both conditions, using Cognitive Processing Therapy alongside the multidisciplinary treatment that’s core to Emily Program care. Jenny and M share why they built the program, who it's designed to serve, and how every detail of its design—from the schedule structure to the staff training to the size of the milieu—was shaped with traumatized nervous systems in mind. About Jenny and M: Jenny Beck (she/her) is Executive Director of The Emily Program’s Residential and Outpatient Treatment Centers in Columbus, Ohio. In this role, she oversees clinical services for children, adolescents, and adults across all levels of care—outpatient, intensive outpatient, partial hospitalization, and residential. Jenny has worked as a therapist since 2006 and has specialized in eating disorder care since 2014. A high point in Jenny’s professional journey was overseeing the launch of The Emily Program’s Columbus Residential Treatment Center in January 2022. M Mullan (she/her) is the Clinical Director of The Emily Program Columbus, overseeing residential, PHP, IOP, and outpatient levels of care. She has more than a decade of experience treating eating disorders across all levels of care and is passionate about reducing barriers to treatment and recovery. M is trained in multiple evidence-based trauma treatment modalities, including the fundamentals of prolonged exposure, and has received advanced training and expert supervision in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). She is an approved CPT provider. We cover: Why trauma and eating disorders so frequently co-occur, and how each can worsen the other The populations most affected by this overlap—and what makes them especially vulnerable The limits of "serial” treatment that asks people to address one condition before the other How Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) supports integrated trauma and eating disorder care What our Trauma PHP looks like in practice, and how to access it In Jenny and M’s words: On the limits of treating trauma and eating disorders separately: “That serial approach—one issue at a time—doesn't really account for the inner interplay and the overlap…There's this complex relationship that we're turning into a one-dimensional reality when we don't treat the whole presentation of suffering that's at play.” On designing care for traumatized nervous systems: “Every little inch of this program has been designed for people who have traumatic experiences in their life story in mind…This is not just an eating disorder program with CPT flopped into it. This is a program designed for their nervous systems.” On lending hope: “There are financial lenders in the world. We, as helping professionals, are hope lenders. We like to say, if you don't have the hope, that's okay. You can borrow ours. You can hold on to ours until you find your own. And we get a lot of interest back, because there's so much joy in lending that hope and people taking advantage of it.” About the podcast: Peace Meal is a podcast hosted by The Emily Program that covers topics related to eating disorders, body image, and how society may influence our thinking. You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Music. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, and tell your friends! Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.