Finding My Way Into Eating Disorder Care
By Dr. Morgan Kissinger, PsyD (She/Her/Hers)
A Personal Path Toward Eating Disorder Care
I didn’t set out with a perfectly mapped plan to become a clinical psychologist specializing in eating disorders. My path into this work is not only professional, it is deeply personal. Like many meaningful paths in my life, this one unfolded quietly at first, shaped by moments of discomfort, curiosity, and a deep pull toward understanding human suffering with compassion rather than judgment. Looking back now, I can see how each step, sometimes tentative, sometimes overwhelming, guided me toward work that feels both professionally grounding and personally meaningful.
My formal journey into eating disorder care began in 2020, though the roots stretch further back than I realized at the time. Long before I ever stepped into a treatment center or therapy room, I was navigating my own complicated relationship with my body, food, and self-worth. Growing up in a larger body, I experienced body dissatisfaction early on and was bullied for my appearance. Those experiences quietly shaped how I learned to see myself and how I coped with distress, including through maladaptive binge eating behaviors. At the same time, I was living with chronic pain, an invisible, persistent presence that further complicated my relationship with my body. My body often felt like something to manage, endure, or apologize for rather than inhabit with care.
Learning Through Lived Experience and Direct Care
Working in direct care taught me lessons no textbook could. It also mirrored parts of my own story in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated. I recognized how easily suffering can be hidden behind humor, achievement, or caretaking, and how often people are praised for endurance rather than offered support. Being both a helper and someone who understood bodily distress from the inside deepened my empathy and reinforced my belief that lived experience, while never the same as a client’s, can inform a more attuned and respectful approach to care. I learned the importance of consistency, attunement, and respect. I learned how deeply misunderstood eating disorders are, how often they are reduced to behaviors rather than understood as complex responses to emotional pain, relational wounds, and nervous system survival strategies. I also learned how powerful it can be when someone feels truly seen rather than managed or fixed. Those early experiences stayed with me, gently shaping how I would later think about therapy, healing, and the role of a clinician.
Clinical Training, Research, and Deepening Focus
Shortly after beginning my work at Alsana, I started graduate school as a first-generation college student. Carrying the weight of that identity meant navigating higher education without a roadmap, often questioning whether I truly belonged in academic and clinical spaces. At the same time, I was learning the language of psychology while unlearning deeply ingrained cultural messages about bodies, worth, and productivity. Graduate school became not only a place of professional training, but also a space where I continued my own healing and self-reflection. Entering training during that time felt both exciting and humbling. The more I learned, the more aware I became of how much there was still to understand. I began to see the intersection between theory and lived experience, how research, when done thoughtfully, can give language to what people already know in their bodies. At the same time, I noticed gaps: places where systems oversimplified suffering or overlooked the impact of early relationships, trauma, and invalidation.
During graduate training, I began working as a practicum student in a group private practice, where I provided care to individuals struggling with eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. I worked with people of different genders, sexual orientations, body sizes, and backgrounds, men whose struggles were often overlooked, LGBTQ+ individuals navigating identity alongside food and body image, and athletes grappling with performance pressures and rigid expectations. Again and again, I was reminded that eating disorders do not discriminate, even if systems of care sometimes do. This marked a transition from direct care to a more formal therapeutic role, and with it came a new kind of responsibility. Sitting across from clients in the therapy room, I was struck by how often the eating disorder was not the core issue, but rather a signal, an adaptation that once served a purpose. Many individuals spoke about learning early on that their needs were too much, their emotions too intense, or their bodies something to be controlled rather than trusted. Therapy became a space to gently question those messages and to build a different relationship with both self and body.
As my clinical work deepened, so did my academic interests. I became especially attuned to how marginalization, whether related to body size, gender identity, sexual orientation, or access to resources, intersects with eating disorder risk and recovery. These observations strengthened my commitment to inclusive, affirming care that makes space for every story, not just the ones most commonly represented. I found myself drawn to questions about attachment, family dynamics, and how early caregiving relationships shape the way we relate to food, our bodies, and ourselves. This curiosity ultimately led to my doctoral dissertation, titled Perceived Parental Bonding: Maladaptive Eating Behaviors and Body Dissatisfaction. My research explored how individuals’ perceptions of parental care and protection related to later struggles with eating and body image. What stood out to me was not a simple cause-and-effect relationship, but a pattern: when emotional needs go unmet or misunderstood, people often find creative (though painful) ways to cope.
Completing my dissertation was both intellectually rigorous and emotionally meaningful. It allowed me to integrate my clinical observations with empirical research, reinforcing what I had seen repeatedly in practice: eating disorders do not emerge in a vacuum. They are shaped by relationships, environments, and broader cultural messages about worth, control, and identity. Writing my dissertation felt like an act of honoring the stories clients had shared with me, even as I remained grounded in my own experience as a learner and clinician.
An Ongoing Commitment to Compassionate, Inclusive Healing
My doctoral internship marked another pivotal chapter in my journey. I completed my internship at Kaiser Permanente, where I worked within their Department of Eating Disorders. There, I provided care from a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) lens, an approach that resonated deeply with my values. DBT emphasizes the balance of acceptance and change, acknowledging suffering as valid while also supporting individuals in building skills to create a life worth living. In the context of eating disorder treatment, this framework offered a compassionate way to address intense emotions, black-and-white thinking, and patterns rooted in survival rather than choice.
Working within an integrated healthcare system broadened my perspective even further. I collaborated with multidisciplinary teams and supported individuals across different levels of care. I saw how systemic barriers, stigma, and limited access can complicate recovery, and how crucial it is for providers to approach treatment with humility and cultural awareness. This experience reinforced my belief that effective eating disorder care must be individualized, trauma-informed, and grounded in respect for each person’s autonomy.
Throughout this journey, one theme has remained constant: the importance of listening. Listening not just for symptoms, but for meaning. Listening for what the eating disorder has provided, protected, or communicated. Listening for the ways people have survived in environments that may not have supported their emotional needs. This perspective has shaped how I show up as a clinician and how I understand healing, not as the absence of struggle, but as the presence of choice, self-compassion, and connection.
Choosing to specialize in eating disorders was not a decision I made lightly. It came from years of sitting with complexity, bearing witness to pain, and recognizing the resilience it takes to seek help in a world that often minimizes or misunderstands these struggles. It also came from an awareness of how deeply personal this work can be, and the responsibility that comes with holding space for vulnerability. I continue to approach this field with curiosity and reverence, knowing that learning does not end with a degree or title.
Today, when I reflect on my path, from a direct care counselor at Alsana, to a graduate student and practicum clinician, to a doctoral intern providing DBT-informed care, and now a pre-licensed clinical psychologist, I feel a profound sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the mentors who guided me, the clients who trusted me, and the experiences that challenged me to grow. This work has shaped not only my professional identity, but also my understanding of what it means to be human.
If there is one message I hope to convey through sharing my story, it is this: you can struggle with eating disorders, body image, chronic pain, or systemic barriers, and still build a meaningful, impactful life. You can carry your own wounds and still help others heal. Eating disorders are not failures or flaws. They are responses to pain, shaped by context and experience. Healing begins not with control, but with understanding, understanding our histories, our relationships, and the ways we learned to cope when we didn’t yet have other options. It is an honor to walk alongside individuals on that journey, and I remain committed to doing so with compassion, integrity, and hope.
Dr. Morgan Kissinger, PsyD, is a pre-licensed clinical psychologist specializing in eating disorders and body image. As a first-generation college graduate with lived experiences, Morgan integrates compassion, evidence-based care, and advocacy to support recovery for all bodies and identities. With a background in DBT and a commitment to inclusive, affirming care, Morgan works with individuals across genders, identities, and body sizes to support healing beyond stigma and shame.
