Specialties · Body Image
Body Image Therapy
The way you see your body is rarely just about your body. It is a set of learned habits of attention, comparison and judgment that were built somewhere and can be examined here.
60-Minute Sessions · $200 · In Person or Telehealth in Utah
What It Looks Like
Checking, Avoiding, and Comparing
Some people manage body image distress by checking — mirrors, photos, the fit of clothing, repeated and often unconscious. Others manage it by avoiding, skipping the mirror entirely, wearing the same shapeless clothing regardless of season, staying out of photos or turning away when they appear on a screen. Both are attempts to control how bad the feeling gets, and both tend to keep the feeling in place rather than resolving it.
Comparison does similar work with worse math. It is rarely a fair comparison — a curated photo, a filtered angle, a stranger scrolled past for two seconds — and it rarely stops at one. Social media has made this near-constant for a lot of people, turning body image into something checked dozens of times a day without a decision ever being made to do so.
Much of this was inherited. Comments about bodies made at family dinners, a parent’s own visible discomfort with their body, praise and criticism handed out based on appearance — these become a voice that keeps running long after the person who first said it is out of the room. Untangling body image often means identifying whose voice is actually doing the talking.
What It Stands In For
Appearance as a Proxy for Worth and Control
Body dissatisfaction often carries weight that has nothing to do with appearance. It can be a stand-in for self-worth, so that a hard day at work becomes a hard day about the body instead. It can be a stand-in for control, when other parts of life feel unpredictable and a body is at least something to have opinions about. Working with it means asking what else is being managed through the body, not just addressing the mirror.
Bodies also change for reasons that have nothing to do with willpower: pregnancy, illness, injury, surgery, aging. Each of those can require its own grieving and its own renegotiation with a body that no longer matches the picture a person carried of themselves. That work is different from disordered eating and is treated as its own subject, even when the two overlap.
Relationships matter here too. A partner’s offhand comment about weight, fitness or appearance can land with far more weight than it was meant to carry, especially in a household where body talk was already loaded before the relationship began. Where useful, a partner is brought into part of the work, and couples counseling remains available separately.
Seeking help for your problems means you’re taking action.
The Work
Separating Body Image From Disordered Eating
Body image work starts by mapping the specific habits doing the damage: what gets checked, what gets avoided, what triggers a bad day, and what the internal commentary sounds like in the moment. From there the work looks at where those habits came from, what they are currently protecting or managing, and what would need to be true for the checking or avoiding to loosen.
This work overlaps with eating disorder treatment but is not the same thing. Someone can have significant body image distress with no disordered eating at all, and that distress is addressed on its own terms. If restriction, bingeing, purging or compensatory exercise are also present, that becomes explicit and is treated as its own concern alongside body image, coordinated with medical care as needed.
Progress usually looks less dramatic than people expect: fewer hours spent in front of a mirror, a scroll session that ends before the comparison spiral starts, a comment from a partner that lands as information instead of an indictment. The goal is not to feel neutral about your body every day. It is to stop letting body image decide the rest of the day.
Athena is not a dietitian or physician and does not provide meal planning, weight targets, or medical monitoring. She does not treat substance abuse, grief, or OCD, and will refer out when one of those is the central concern.
Common Questions
Body Image Therapy Questions
- Is body image therapy the same as eating disorder treatment?
- Not necessarily. Body image concerns can exist without disordered eating, and the two are treated as related but separate. If disordered eating patterns are present or emerge, that becomes part of the conversation directly.
- Can this help with body image after pregnancy, illness or aging?
- Yes. A body that has changed through pregnancy, illness, injury or aging often needs its own reckoning, separate from any concern about eating. Sessions address how you relate to a body that no longer matches an old picture of yourself.
- What if my partner’s comments about my body are part of the problem?
- That is common and worth naming directly. Depending on what would help, a partner can be brought into part of the work, and couples counseling is available separately if the relationship pattern needs its own space.
- How long are sessions and what do they cost?
- Individual sessions are 60 minutes at $200. Select Health, BCBS, UBH and University of Utah Health Plans are accepted, and sessions are available in person in Salt Lake City or by telehealth anywhere in Utah.
Start With the Contact Form
Body image work is individual therapy here, sometimes with a partner joining for part of it. Send the contact form before anything is scheduled.