Heidi Hensley, LPC-MHSP, CEDS
Presentation Title:
“Why Compliance Isn’t Recovery: Moving Clients from Performance to Agency in Eating Disorder Treatment”
Presentation Overview:
Clients with eating disorders can appear highly compliant with treatment—following meal plans, attending sessions, and demonstrating weight or symptom restoration—while remaining psychologically entrenched in the disorder. This phenomenon, often described as “performance recovery,” creates a false sense of progress and can leave clinicians uncertain how to deepen treatment beyond behavioral adherence. This presentation examines why compliance frequently masquerades as recovery and how well-intended interventions can unintentionally reinforce obedience, perfectionism, and external control rather than internal change. The presentation will provide practical, clinically applicable strategies for both therapists and dietitians to reduce power struggles, disrupt rule-driven recovery, and foster client ownership of change.
Learning Objectives:
- Attendees will be able to differentiate between behavioral compliance and true psychological recovery in eating disorder treatment.
- Attendees will be able to identify clinical markers of performance-based recovery and the emotional processes that maintain it.
- Attendees will be able to apply interdisciplinary strategies that shift treatment from obedience and rule-following toward agency and internal motivation.
Speaker Biography:
Heidi is the Director of Clinical Education and Training at Anchored Counseling. She is a member of TLPCA and a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist through IAEDP. She has been working as a therapist for 16 years, 12 of them specifically with eating disorders and OCD across the spectrum and across the lifespan. Heidi has worked at every level of care treating ED and currently treats all ED at the op level at Anchored Counseling. She is certified in FBT for AN and BN, CPT for PTSD, TF-CBT, and has extensive ERP training and experience over 12 years.