Caroline Shermer, MS, RDN, LDN, CIEC, CEDS-C & Megan Barbee, LPC-MHSP

Keynote Presentation Title:

“Creative Paths to Healing: Expressive Arts and Metaphors in the Treatment of Eating Disorders”

Presentation Overview:

By engaging in creative techniques, clients can gain insight into their current symptoms by accessing thoughts and feelings that lie outside of their conscious awareness. Eating disorders are, by nature, such somatic manifestations of trauma and unprocessed emotion, therefore creative and somatic approaches that allow the client to activate the limbic system to facilitate deeper processing and growth. Expressive arts allows for a deeper exploration into the roots of eating disorder function and symptomology. The creative process itself allows for non-verbal expression, therefore opening space for the authentic experience, and often lessening defense mechanisms such as rationalization and intellectualization that our ED clients frequently use when processing in therapy.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will be able to understand the basics of using expressive arts therapies and metaphors in working with eating disorders as well as general precautions of using these in work with clients.
2. Attendees will understand how creative approaches can facilitate deeper therapeutic growth for clients with eating disorders than traditional talk therapy, more cognitive based therapeutic interventions.
3. Attendees will utilize expressive arts and metaphor themselves and be able to experientially demonstrate how to utilize these techniques.

Speaker Biographies:

Registered dietitian and certified Intuitive Eating Counselor Caroline Shermer helps clients recover from eating disorders in Nashville, TN. She began as a nutrition intern with the University of Missouri’s athletic department, supporting Division I athletes. Her dietetic internship included residential, PHP, and IOP eating disorder treatment for adolescents and adults. Since entering private practice in 2019, she has helped hundreds heal their relationships with food, body image, and exercise. In 2023, she received the Excellence in Practice: Eating Disorders award at FNCE. She founded Meant To Eat Nutrition Counseling and the Here & Now Closet to promote compassion and self-care.

 

 

Megan Barbee, LPC-MHSP, is the founder of Creative Process Counseling in East Nashville. She holds an MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Lipscomb University, specializing in play and expressive arts. Megan integrates art, play, and creativity to treat trauma and eating disorders across all ages. Also a dancer, teacher, and choreographer, she weaves embodiment into her work. Her research and advocacy highlight the arts’ impact on development and wellbeing. Through her clinical experience, she has seen how creative and somatic approaches help clients process root issues and move beyond symptoms toward deeper healing.