Welcome
“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
— Anaïs Nin
Welcome
Dr. Suzanne Manser | Licensed Psychologist
I’m a licensed psychologist with private practices in the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario and Portland, OR. I work with folks from Ontario, Oregon, and California.
My expertise is in treating people with eating disorders, disordered eating, body image issues, and anxiety. I also have extensive experience working with people who have depression, bipolar disorder, self-esteem issues, and relationship difficulties.
If you’re considering working with me, My Services offers information about my practice, and the articles in My Blog illustrate how I approach various issues. My articles offer strategies for improving relationships with emotions, thoughts, and self.
My Expertise
Eating Disorders
Eating Disorders include Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder, and ARFID, as well as orthorexia, diabulimia, and other subclinical versions. The myth is that eating disorders are about ego and vanity. The reality is that they are an attempt to feel emotionally safe and acceptable as a human. A person with an eating disorder uses food – eating too little or too much, getting rid of it, measuring it, keeping records of it, focusing on it to an extreme degree, and/or being very, very regimented about it – as a tool to feeling emotional safety or comfort. Their ability to control food and make their body look the way they want it to become primary sources of self-esteem and worth. Their inability to control food and their body as they want to becomes a primary source of shame.
I’ve been working with people with eating disorders since 1999. Part of the work is understanding how the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors associated with the eating disorder create emotional safety for you. Then we will find healthier coping mechanisms. We will work on self-acceptance, cultivating other sources of self-esteem, and creating an identity that doesn’t revolve around the eating disorder.
To learn more about eating disorders, go here.
Anxiety
Anxiety has many forms, but at its core it is a fear of what could happen. This fear is so significant that it prevents you from living life as you want to. Anxiety may take the form of persistent worrying or planning, overthinking, rigidly avoiding feared situations, and/or a strong physiological reaction (e.g., an increase in heart rate, flushing, or shortness of breath). Rigidity in the way you think or behave, a need to be in control (especially of things you can’t actually control), and hypervigilance are other signs of anxiety.
I’ve been working with people with anxiety for close to 20 years. Instead of worrying about or preparing for every situation – or whichever specific situations you focus on – we will cultivate trust that you can handle whatever comes up when it comes up. I will give you tools and strategies to manage anxiety-provoking situations. You will learn how to make room for anxiety, move away from unhelpful thoughts, and stay in the present.
Self-Acceptance
Self-acceptance is the foundation of most of the work I do with my patients. Accepting yourself leads to validating yourself. When you can accept and validate yourself, you can create solid ground beneath your feet and let go of a lot of pain. Accepting yourself means that you see and acknowledge whatever is true about yourself. Period. You don’t have to like it or approve of it. You can want to change it. None of that has anything to do with self-acceptance. Acceptance is just acknowledging what is without judging it.
Self-acceptance means you don’t judge yourself for being human. You see all of your bits and you know that none of them make you shameful. You can have flaws and make mistakes and still be acceptable. If you accept yourself, your inner critic has no leverage. Once you know you’re acceptable, you also know that you are good enough and worthy as you are.
Self-acceptance is attainable. The only obstacle is your belief that you have to be better, perfect, or enough (but not too much) before you can be deemed acceptable. I will help you work to uncover the knowledge
that everything about you is acceptable right now.
My Approach
I work collaboratively with each patient to help them define and move toward their goals for therapy. We work to develop insight about why they are the way they are. I also offer concrete strategies to make changes in how they relate to their feelings, thoughts, actions, body, and/or themselves. Changing these relationships is how they move toward their specific goals.
My primary therapeutic lens is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT focuses on helping us connect to what is meaningful in life and detach from what is unhelpful. It offers specific strategies for living a fulfilling life, managing painful emotions and unhelpful thoughts, and staying psychologically flexible. ACT is an empirically validated treatment for eating disorders, depression, and various forms of anxiety, amongst other disorders (i.e., it has research to back it up).
I began my career steeped in the psychodynamic approach, and it continues to inform my work in helping patients developing insight about why they became who they became. I also use neuroscience to help them understand how to make impacts on a neural level (and why we want to!).
