Rik Rusovick, PhD, LMFT

Rik Rusovick PhD, LMFT is a psychotherapist in the Bay Area. Rik worked in eating disorders and dual diagnosis partial and intensive outpatient programs before joining Kaiser Permanente in 2012. At Kaiser Rik partnered with Bariatrics and Health Education to develop a psychotherapy group for patients struggling with obesity and compulsive eating behaviors. Until that time eating disorders treatment mainly served anorexic and bulimic members. Since 2019, Rik has seen patients in primary care and private practice settings. Outside therapy, Rik enjoys hiking, guitar playing, fiction, and especially time with his partner and their dog.

Threat, Emotional Eating, and Self Compassion
Saturday | May 6, 2023
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
(1.5 CEs)

Workshop Description:

Perceived threat drives emotional eating through the operation of self-critical and self-scaring voices. Many struggling with overeating experience aggressive self-criticism and/or fears of looming personal disaster. Food relieves suffering for a time. In this workshop, attendees will learn how to identify these voices, their personal and social histories, and a process for guiding clients in responding compassionately and consistently to these internal ‘helpers.’ Self- compassion’s effect on many emotional problems lies in its unique capacity to dismantle and de-fang these perceived threats. We’ll look at research and some cases of how this approach may be applied to overeating.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to identify five messages of self-criticism and self-frightening in disordered eating.
2. Participants will know how to identify five social meanings at work in clients’ internal dialogues (e.g., social value, social inclusion, safety, identity, consequences of non-conformity, etc.).
3. Participants will be able to describe three themes in how self compassion and mindfulness more broadly are being used in mental health.
4. Participants will learn to combine two methods from Emotion Focused Therapy’s protective anger process with self-compassion to address more difficult presentations.

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