Smoke and Mirrors: Why Your Inner Critic Sounds So Convincing
The inner critic feels true because it works through your nervous system. Why the alarm in your body is real but the message usually isn't.
Articles, Podcasts & Research
Publications
Featured Article
As Published in The Therapist Magazine
Why Overeaters' Anonymous Doesn't Work
This article explores how certain practices within OA may inadvertently reinforce the eating disorder rather than facilitate healing, and offers insights into what truly creates lasting recovery.
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Two Wise Women Talking
In this podcast, healer/teachers Sheira Kahn and Diana Zaheer invite you inside their friendship to give you an experience of connection you can take to your close relationships. With 11 episodes, you will leave with tools you can use - even during a fight.
Integrating the 'Id'
The Id - the animal and child part of human nature - is quite misunderstood and much maligned! Explore how to integrate the id so its vitality and energy becomes available to you.
Conquering Your Inner Critic
Getting into your body and the present moment to overcome the tyrannical inner critic, with tools to move through the trauma behind it.
Feelings and Diet Thoughts
Diet thoughts can be a response to underlying feelings, and an invitation to explore what's really going on - and find your power angle in different situations.
Articles
Read & Explore
The Repair
Hurting each other is inevitable; repair isn't. Why pulling back after a fight hurts more — and what a real repair conversation sounds like.
Stop a Fight with Someone You Love
Most fights start with a distorted interpretation, not the event itself. A simple timeline exercise to check your interpretations before the rabbit hole.
The Part That Wants Food May Just Want You
Depletion and deprivation are at the heart of most eating problems. Why the part of you that wants food may be asking to be loved — and a blessing that gives something back.
How to Tell if You are Hungry, or Too Hungry
Learn the difference between plain hunger and the 'red zone' of too hungry — and a simple exercise to read your body's signals.
Say Hi to Your Body
A simple way to start rebuilding trust with your body — beginning with a greeting.
When It Comes to Eating, You Have the Power Inside
Lasting eating disorder recovery comes from shifting to an inner focus. Why GLP-1s, surgery, and nutrition rules can only activate the wisdom that was already inside you.
I Suck, Therefore I Eat
When overeating feels automatic, it may be because your identity and your habit agree. On how the inner critic shapes behavior — and how metaprocessing can help.
Meditation Runs Through It
Meditation isn't only the cushion. Swimming, dancing, live music, and real contact with another person can drop the nervous system into the same meditative state.
Learning to Take Up Space
Taking up space is not taking over the space. Moving out of merging with the people you love — without cutting off — by monitoring your own energy.
Objectivity Frees a Client From Eating Jail
How objectivity — seeing thoughts about weight, calories, and hunger as constructs rather than facts — frees a client in anorexia recovery from the binge-restrict cycle.
Two Sides of the Street: A Map Out of Merging
On staying grounded in your own corner without merging — noticing fear, releasing control, and letting awareness widen to include a loved one.
The Missing Piece of GLP-1 Recovery
GLP-1 recovery isn't just weight loss. Lasting eating disorder recovery requires metaprocessing, a new brain map, and self-acceptance.
When it Comes to Eating, We All Heal Differently
Yes, there are guidelines, but there is no one right way to heal. Three women, three paths — and why there isn't one correct map for recovery.
When Anger is Mature
On how the anger that surfaces when we start paying attention to ourselves is often a sign of healing — and how to slow it down.
Three Drinks In
What being triggered does to the brain — and why you can't trust what anyone says while they're in that state.
The Age of the Muse
On Freud's forgotten teaching about the id as the pipeline of the life force, the inner critic as a misfiring warning system, and how to welcome the muse back in.
The Chasm in the Personality
On how early gaps in attunement shape who we are, why people with similar wounds find each other, and how to tend to the unmet places within.
Your Inner Critic Is Causing the Very Behavior It Hates
How the inner critic's harshness drives the unproductivity it punishes — and how to shift from command to cooperation.
Hijacked by Shame: Understanding Eating Disorders
An excerpt of Chapter Three from The Erasing Ed Treatment Manual
Eight Steps That Make It Easy to Listen to the Stomach
A practical guide to reconnecting with your body's hunger and fullness signals.
Ten Things to Say to Your Inner Critic
Concrete responses you can use to challenge and quiet your harshest self-judgments.
To Parents
Guidance for parents navigating a child's eating disorder—what helps, what hurts, and how to stay connected.
Eating Disorders: An Overview
A comprehensive introduction to the types, causes, and treatment approaches for eating disorders.
To Men
Addressing the often-overlooked reality of eating disorders in men and how to seek help.
Kidnapped: Eating Disorders and Infertility
Exploring the connection between eating disorders and fertility, and the path toward healing both.
Note to a Colleague: Anorexia
Clinical insights on treating anorexia through attachment, the inner critic, and emotional expression.
Interrupting the Cycle: Expressing Feelings
How expressing emotions directly reduces eating disorder compulsivity and creates healing through corrective experiences.
Video
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Published Author
Erasing ED
Tools and Foundations for Eating Disorder Recovery
A companion to the award-winning PBS documentary, this treatment manual provides accessible, clear guidance on the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of eating disorders—written for mental health providers and non-professionals alike.
"Writing and teaching are extensions of my therapeutic work—ways to reach and help more people on their healing journeys."
— Sheira Kahn
