Avis Rumney Biography
The question most often asked by anyone seeking an eating disorder therapist is "what qualifies you to do this work?" For me, the answer is both personal and professional.
In my own life, I struggled with anorexia from the age of eleven until I was thirty. This experience unwittingly rendered me an expert on the isolation, self-hatred and self-torment which characterizes the inner world of an anorexic.
I also witnessed first-hand the pain and frustration my parents and brothers experienced in attempting to help me and to cope themselves. Unfortunately, my denial was stronger than their best efforts to help me.
I was one of the lucky anorexics who survived. At the age of 30, weighing 68 pounds (on a 5'3" frame), I finally entered therapy for "anxiety and depression". Even then I didn't believe that I had an eating problem. Fortunately, my therapist did. I am immeasurably grateful for the help I received from a number of therapists and other health care professionals. It was my own journey towards recovery that compelled me to become a psychotherapist and to work with people with eating disorders and their families.
My professional background in eating disorders began with coursework in graduate school. The subject of my thesis was the causes and treatment of eating disorders. Since 1982, I have worked as a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Eating Disorder Specialist in private practice. In this time, I have worked extensively with female and male adolescents and adults suffering from anorexia, bulimia and binge eating, as well as with families or with individual family members where there is a family member with an eating disorder.
My post-graduate studies in eating disorders have included coursework at the Mental Research Institute of Palo Alto, John F. Kennedy University and the San Francisco Psychotherapy Institute, as well as various seminars with eating disorder specialists Susan Sands, Ph.D., David Garner, Ph.D, Joel Yaeger, Ph.D. and many others.
I am affiliated with the state organization and the Marin Chapter of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT), the San-Francisco based Association for Professionals Treating Eating Disorders (APTED), the Network of Indepenent Interventionists (NII), the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), the International Eating Disorder Association of Professionals, (IEDAP) and the the Eating Disorder Referral and Information Network (EDRIC). My publications include the book Dying to Please: Anorexia, Treatment and Recovery (Second Edition) and the chapter "Back Through the Looking Glass" in the book Full Lives: Stories by Women Who Have Freed Themselves from Food and Weight Obsession.
