Holding Two Truths: When Eating Disorder Care Both Helps and Harms with Dr Tanya Frances

Have you ever sat in a treatment room and felt like the real you was completely invisible, like the system was so focused on your weight, your behaviours, your diagnosis, that it forgot there was a whole person underneath? This episode is for you.This week on the Full of Beans Podcast, I'm joined by Tanya Francis, a research psychologist, lecturer at the Open University, and psychotherapist in private practice, who also brings her own lived experience of an eating disorder to this conversation.Tanya's background is in domestic violence research and gender-based violence, and the more she looked at how systems respond when someone is harmed, the more she saw uncomfortable parallels with eating disorder care.In this episode, we explore:What iatrogenic harm means and why care systems can sometimes cause harmThe role of BMI and weight in treatment,How rigid care centralising numbers can reinforce eating disorder logicHow weight stigma in healthcare shuts people out before they've even begunThe culture of mistrust around eating disorders and the damage it doesWhy people pleasing in treatment can look like recovery but lead straight back to relapseMoral injury and what happens when clinicians can't act on their own valuesTanya's own experience of not being believed in her body during inpatient careWhy truly humanising care is both simpler and more complex than it soundsHow two things can be true at once, e.g. a broken system and incredible people working within itConnect with Us:Subscribe to the Full of Beans PodcastFollow Full of Beans on InstagramCheck out our websiteListen on YouTubeConnect with Tanya via Instagram (@drtanyafrances), LinkedIn or her website⚠️ Content Note: This episode contains discussions of eating disorder treatment, inpatient care, and iatrogenic harm. Please take care of yourself while listening.