Educator
Carolyn's first love was teaching. She served as a high school teacher and counselor for 8 years prior to dedicating her career to the full time treatment of eating disorders. Carolyn credits teaching troubled adolescents with helping her learn how to deal with difficult situations "with grace under pressure."
"Teaching teens who had been kicked out of the system helped me to be prepared for anything, to always look for the best in people and give it back to them, to see beyond the problems to the heart of the individual, and to value establishing a trusting relationship as a precursor for helping someone not only learn but to change."
Therapist
After recovering from her own eating disorder Carolyn became a therapist in 1977 and has been treating people suffering from eating and body image problems since that time. Initially Carolyn began seeing clients in her private practice in the evenings after her day ended at the high school. Eventually, Carolyn opened her outpatient clinic, in southern California, "Community Counseling."
Community Counseling serves clients from Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles County. Several therapists trained by Carolyn see individuals and their significant others. Community Counseling also offers sessions with a dietitian and group therapy. Sliding scale fees are available.
Click here for more information on Community Counseling.
Founder
After serving as founder and clinical director of several hospital based eating disorder programs, Carolyn new she wanted to create something different. "I wanted to create a center for healing in a home like environment, surrounded by nature." Her first facility, Monte Nido was established in 1996 and the success of that program has led to several Monte Nido affiliates including her day treatment program, The Eating Disorder Center of California, her residential program in Eugene Oregon, Rain Rock, and her newest program Monte Nido Vista, a sister program to Monte Nido located 15 minutes from the original site.
As Carolyn's career as an eating disorder specialist grew, she began treating very difficult and complicated cases. "It became clear that I needed to find a place to treat individuals who needed much more than outpatient care." After searching for the right treatment program Carolyn decided to try to develop an eating disorder program herself and for a few years established and served as both therapist and clinical director for 4 eating disorder units at hospitals in southern California. Each of the programs was successful but Carolyn felt like something was missing and longed to create her own treatment facility. " I wanted to have a place that I would have liked to have gone to when I was suffering from my own eating disorder. I saw too many people get better in the hospital only to relapse upon returning home. There were many reasons for this but part of it was due to the fact that in the hospital setting we were unable to provide them with real world experiences like shopping, preparing and cooking food. It was clear to me that people with eating disorders needed hands on experience with food. They needed to be able to go into a kitchen and portion their meals, learn how to make and give themselves the proper amount of food not just be served it on a tray. Additionally at the hospital we did not have any sort of exercise program to help teach people how to exercise in a controlled and healthy way. After a prophetic dream one night I realized that I needed to create an eating disorder facility in a home like setting with an atmosphere that I believed was more conducive to healing. This is how Monte Nido, my residential program, in the foothills of Malibu California, was born in 1996."
The success of Monte Nido has spread and Carolyn has now opened several Monte Nido affiliates. First came her transitional living house for people who successfully complete the Monte Nido program but can benefit from a transitional program prior to returning home. Then Carolyn established her day treatment program, The Eating Disorder Center of California, in Brentwood California, treating people who need more than outpatient but not full 24 hour care. In 2006 Carolyn partnered with a former staff member, Annie Laughlin, to open Rain Rock, a residential program outside of Eugene Oregon. Most recently, Monte Nido Vista, a sister program of Monte NIdo, only 15 minutes from the original facility, was opened in February 2008
Click here for more information on these facilities.
Author
Carolyn writes extensively for magazines, newspapers, and journals and has been a contributing author to several books on eating disorders. She is most proud of her three books, which have all become popular with professionals as well as the lay public and those suffering from eating disorders themselves, "Your Dieting Daughter", "The Eating Disorder Sourcebook," and "100 questions and Answer About Eating Disorders."
Early on in her career around 1976 Carolyn started working on her first book with a working title of "Dying to Be Thin." At this time there was only one eating disorder book in circulation. When "The Golden Cage" by Hilde Bruch came out Carolyn thought, "that's it the eating disorder book has been written," and she put away her manuscript. The eating disorder field continued to grow and books continued to be published and Carolyn decided she would write a book by the time she was 40. The year she turned 40 Carolyn was offered two book contracts and wrote both "Your Dieting Daughter" and "The Eating Disorder Sourcebook."
Exactly a decade later in 2006 Carolyn was again approached by two different publishing houses and asked to re write a new revised edition of "The Eating Disorder Sourcebook" and to write "100 Questions and Answers About Eating Disorders." Carolyn also has a small booklet, Nutritional therapy and The Eating Disorders" that she co wrote with Alex Schauss on the use of alternative therapies, e.g. the use of certain nutritional supplements in the treatment of eating disorders.
Click here for more information on Carolyn's books.
Lecturer
Carolyn still loves to teach. In addition to her local study groups for professionals and her training of interns Carolyn travels around the country teaching professionals what she has learned over the last three decades about how to successfully prevent and treat eating disorders.
Click here for more information on Carolyn's speaking engagements.
