Podcast Transcript

Bonus Episode: Heartfelt Memories & Unforgettable Moments from The Renfrew Center Foundation’s Conference with Dr. Melanie Smith, PhD, LMHC, CEDS-C

[Bouncy theme music plays.]

Sam: Hey, I’m Sam.

Ashley: Hi, I’m Ashley, and you’re listening to All Bodies. All Foods. presented by The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. We want to create a space for all bodies to come together authentically and purposefully to discuss various areas that impact us on a cultural and relational level.

Sam: We believe that all bodies and all foods are welcome. We would love for you to join us on this journey. Let’s learn together.

Sam: Back in November 1991 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Renfrew Center Foundation offered its first national conference. There were 150 attendees at that time. But here we are today, about to embark on our 34th annual conference. All these years later, it has evolved into something truly special, an annual venue and reunion for more than 600 mental health providers. We’ve had the honor of hosting speakers such as Gloria Steinem, Roxanne Gay, Bruce Perry, Monica Lewinsky, Adele LaFrance, Gabourey Sibidet, among many others. Many of our keynote speakers and presenters have been pioneers in the field, as well as mentors for the next generation of eating disorder providers. As we approach our 34th annual conference, we invited Melanie Smith here today to reflect and reminisce about how we’ve been moved, the ways we’ve grown, and the things we’ve internalized after years of attending this amazing event. We also wanted a sneak peek of this year’s conference, and Melanie did not disappoint. Melanie Smith, PhD, licensed mental health counselor, and certified eating disorder specialist is the director of training for the Renfrew Center. In this role, she is responsible for developing and implementing clinical training and programming that is consistent with emerging research and evidence-based practice. Dr. Smith is co-author of the peer-reviewed treatment manual and patient workbook, The Renfrew Unified Treatment Model for Eating Disorders and Comorbidity, published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Smith is a certified therapist and trainer of the Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders and has been a presenter, moderator, and member of the Renfrew Conference Committee for many years. I hope you join us for a trip down memory lane.

Sam: Welcome back everyone to another episode of All Bodies, All Foods. As we are approaching the, I can’t believe I’m saying this, the Renfrew Foundation 34th annual conference. 34 years. We wanted to devote an episode to reflect on our experiences, what we’ve learned, how we’ve grown, who we’ve met along the way. Some incredible speakers have been at the conference and it’s worth an entire episode, I think, talking about all of the different experiences we’ve had, so we invited Dr. Melanie Smith here today to talk more about it. Welcome to the show, Melanie.

Melanie: Thank you. I’m here to be your resident conference junkie. I love conferences in general so it’s something I get excited to talk about. Thank you.

Sam: Yes. You know, if my memory serves me, I think that I’ve heard you say “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

Melanie: Well, and you did hear that right.

Sam: I overheard you say that.

Melanie: You did hear that right. And again, this is just truly revealing ,who anyone who knows me well enough knows, that I have a very strong inner nerd and I mean that with great affection towards the nerds of the world because I consider myself a card carrying member, but like I love professional education, continuing education events and I love getting to see my people, right? Like I think conferences in general are a unique opportunity that I don’t get in my day-to-day life to connect with people that I otherwise wouldn’t get to see face to face. And that and I mean face to face like on a screen sometimes and I mean face to face in person sometimes but that it just creates these opportunities that you don’t have, so I’ve always said like I could set my watch by it, which I knowing when the conference happens every year, but and particularly the Renfrew conference as I’ve attended it many, many times, which I realized again, I’m not really setting my watch, but I’m like setting my calendar to it. It’s like my beacon every year and everything kind of gets planned around that.

Sam: Right, right. It’s like the new year for an eating disorder therapist, you know? It’s like happy new year, Renfrew conference. Well, speaking of, you’ve been to many, many, but how many conferences have you been to so far and what’s your involvement been?

Melanie: Okay, so I might not have the number exactly correct because it gets a little fuzzy the longer I go back, but I’ve, you know, worked for Renfrew for 17, or pushing 17 years. I have not attended all of those conferences because in my earlier years, it was not something that I was able to do.  I remember the first year that I was able to go to the conference and I felt very special and important, but also had a lot of imposter syndrome because I’m like, “actually, I don’t know if I can like sit at the big kids table and like be with all of these,: because I knew I was going to be in a place in a space with all of these big names, right? These people that I’ve read their articles in, you know, in journals, or I’ve watched them on webinars, or I’ve been to their trainings in larger, you know, larger forums or something. And I get to be in the same room with them or be in these, you know, networking events with them online and have more direct interaction and that it just gets all my, all my sense of, you know, excited.

Sam: Yeah, it gets the butterflies.

Melanie: So I think of the 17-ish years, I think I’ve been to 10. I think this will be my 10th conference that I’ve participated in as an attendee. And then I’ve been part of the planning, the program committee, which is the group of folks that come together to put together the kind of clinical program to determine what is the theme, “what message are we truly trying to shape and create? What sort of learning opportunities do folks want to have? What is you know, kind of a buzz in the field. What are people wanting to know more about? What are some of the controversies or difficult things that are happening with the field? And how do we talk about that and navigate that?” And that’s been, I’ve been a part of that. This will be my ninth conference that I’ve been a part of that. It’s pretty cool that I’ve gotten to be behind the curtain a little bit more to understand what it takes to kind of bring it all together. That only made my enthusiasm grow quite a bit more.

Sam: Yeah, well, and also Melanie, let’s not forget, you’ve been a speaker at the Renfrew Conference, a moderator. Can you say a little bit about what that’s like?

Melanie: Yeah, well, again, it was a bit, you know, the first time I got to speak,  I was very excited and honored, because again, I felt like I got invited to sit with the big kids, but again, also terrified, right, and nervous that, you know, here I am in this bigger platform than maybe what I was used to in my earlier days, and just wanting to do a really good job and wanting to, again, learn from other people, but also really taking very seriously that people come here to get something new or to really garner some skills, like learn something that’s really actually tangible and useful for their practice, so taking that very seriously, which of course increased my anxiety a little bit about being able to deliver and to perform. It’s fun being on that side too, a little more nerve wracking, certainly. I really appreciate the opportunities to be able to do it because it’s obviously a big growth opportunity, but my biggest exciting moments have been when I’ve been able to like moderate or facilitate keynotes with some of our more notable presenters. The fan girling opportunities are pretty big. Therefore, the opportunities for me to say things that are embarrassing or put my foot in my mouth are also big.

Sam: Right, like the fear of going viral for saying something.

Melanie: For saying something or mispronouncing someone’s name. Like that’s always, you know, I always have like angst about that ahead of time. But again, like when I sit back and think about it, like how cool was it that I got to talk to, you know, last year, I got to sit down on a stage and simultaneously talk to Chrissy King and Reagan Chastain and Whitney Way Thore all at the same time. Like did I really get to do that? I still actually am not sure. There’s pictures, there’s video evidence, but in my heart of hearts, did I ever think I would meet them as someone who follows each of them on social media and has for a long time and had this parasocial relationship. Oh, and then I got to have lunch with them and sit down with them and have, what I thought, was a really interesting conversation. What an amazing opportunity that I don’t even know how I got so lucky, but I did. So I’m very just appreciative of those experiences.

Sam: Yeah. That’s incredible.

Ashley: Melanie, so part of your role on the committee is that you all come up, you mentioned this, with the theme and kind of where the conference is going. Can you remind us what the theme is for this year for the 34th conference?

Melanie: Yes. This year. And again, I had to, I had to check myself in my brain a little bit because guess what? We’re already planning 2025. So that’s the blessing and the curse of the conference committee is you get to be behind the scenes, but you’re also, we actually plan these about 18 months in advance. So right now we’re in this interesting, exciting, but like big time where we’re already kind of thinking about and conceiving 2025 as we’re getting ready to launch 2024. So this year’s is The New Normal: Harnessing Wisdom and Experience. Oh no, oh no, pop quiz, I failed the pop quiz. Those words are all in there though, but the new normal. But really what we were trying to speak to, which is an idea of just recognizing one, we all know what happened four years ago in the way in which not only our personal lives and have had been upended and changed, but we know that the field of eating disorders has changed significantly. We know the field of doing therapy and being helping professionals out in the world, regardless of whether you’re a therapist, a dietitian, a physician, a coach, right? The landscape has changed, and so really just addressing that continuing to change landscape that all of us are still trying to kind of get our bearings in because I think there have been a lot of like innovations and new things that are really exciting and really encouraging and hopeful and creates new opportunities. But there’s also some things that we’re kind of struggling with or holding onto and we need to hold onto because we don’t want to lose some of the wisdom and like history  of all the things that have gone before. So really kind of sitting in that tension that we’re all in. And that’s what this year’s conference is about.

Sam: So I have the title so we get it right. The New Normal: Harnessing Wisdom and Innovation, which is exactly what you just said.

Melanie: Yes, well, and it’s so funny because, again, Sam knows this, but earlier today we were in our meeting planning for 2025 and we will sit there and workshop these words and these ideas like wisdom, innovation, new normal, and so we just did that a few hours ago for next year. So I was like, my brain, is my brain going to be able to [inadubile].

Sam: Yeah, well, it just goes to show how much time, thought and effort goes into the planning of every conference. What did you say? It’s like an 18 month process.

Melanie:  Yes, it is.

Sam: I mean, this isn’t something that’s just like thrown together. This is where all the all these minds on the committee come together and thoughtfully and mindfully plan out what we think the eating disorder field where, you know, what we want to learn, what we want to know, how we need to grow, all of these different themes. It takes a lot of work.

Ashley: I mean, that’s something I’ve been really grateful for. So Melanie, you said, what, 10 years? I think I’ve attended five, maybe. And just seeing and hearing from, I think one of the things that has been so lovely to me about this conference, working within the eating disorder community, is acknowledging, maybe where we’ve come from and some of the history of eating disorder treatment. And like you said, how we’re moving forward, you know, what those innovations are and how we can do that. So that makes me really excited. I kind of I’m with you with the nerds of the continuing education. I love learning all that I can, and speaking of, we have 56 CE credits potentially available.

Melanie: Yeah. So many. So many CE applications to fill out. I might have something to do with that. So I know how much work again goes into that. Just anyone out there that’s listening, who’s ever done one, imagine doing that many. So again, it’s a massive undertaking, totally worth it. Totally worth it though, because it’s so gratifying to learn from people that you’ve read their book. That’s part of how we practice. Like what books are we reading, what podcasts are we listening to? And I get so much inspiration from podcasts because I am such a a ravenous podcast consumer getting, you know, getting ideas of different perspectives like, what are we seeing on social media? What are folks talking about in therapist or dietician or eating disorder groups on various social media platforms. What are the issues that they’re contending with and really thinking about how do we, one, get connected with the people who are really doing this work and talking about it that are really innovating. And how do we bring them all together? We were particularly proud and excited of this year as far as one, just the robustness, like how many CEs we can offer so that there really is not only something for everybody, but lots of some things for everybody. I think that can be hard too when you’re trying to decide like, “do I go to this conference or that conference?” I told you, I’m a conference junkie all around. Obviously, my heart and soul goes into this conference because it’s a big part of my job into putting it on. And I love it, but I love going to other conferences and even non-eating disorder conferences that I’ve attended several recently. Words are hard for me to describe how excited the nerd in me gets when I’m sitting in a room or sitting on a Zoom with someone that I’ve read their work for years and now I’m hearing them talk about it and they’re talking to me, or it feels like they’re talking to me, or I even have an opportunity for them to talk to me because I can ask a question in a chat if I’m virtual or I can sit there and raise my hand in the room. I have core memories of raising my hand in a room being so anxious to do it because I was so afraid that I was going to ask a stupid question and the person that I looked up to, this is actually a particular memory, Kelly Klump, anyone who’s familiar with Kelly Klump, an incredibly prolific and brilliant researcher from Michigan State who’s done a ton of work in eating disorders. This was years ago, pre-COVID, I don’t know exactly which year, and it was in a workshop at the Renfrew Conference. I thought about my question for 30 minutes before, because I wanted to make sure it was adequate. I don’t even know what the answer was to my question, but I got brave enough, I asked the question and Kelly said, “that’s such a good and insightful question.” Let me tell you, I held on to that.

Sam: Yes, you’ve internalized it.

Melanie: Because I thought “Kelly thought I had a good and insightful question.” That piece of little connection meant something to me and encouraged me to learn more about it and be more interested and excited. It’s just interesting to see and feel how much that excitement from a conference really can give you momentum to kind of keep as a clinician, like keep going, keep learning, keep going. It’s where I get energized.

Sam: This is why I think it’s so important for new clinicians to come to the conference. You know, those little moments where you can meet these well-known figures in the eating disorder field, but not only that, like you get to ask questions and it builds your confidence. I think we even have a networking event this year for new..

Melanie:  And that was actually part of the idea. We have it, it’s for early career. I think we called it early career professionals because people enter the field at many different stages, and we certainly know a lot of folks might enter into the, eating the sort of world as a second career, but really an opportunity, one to just talk about like the shared developmental experiences you have being early career, which include things like imposter syndrome.

Sam: Oh, yeah.

Melanie:  And also, again, to energize, to motivate, to encourage and say, “yeah, I’m new too,” but you know what? Going and asking the question in the chat actually might yield something good. It might create a connection that you didn’t have before and really, you know, encouraging each other to do that. And as I’m thinking about it, too, I mentioned I’ve been with Renfrew for almost 17 years, but I’ve only been to 10 conferences. Well,because back in the olden days, no conference was virtual, right? There was no hybrid component. People still had to keep seeing the patients. That’s why, in the early years, I wasn’t able to attend because there was no such thing as a virtual or a hybrid conference where you could virtually access the content, which is such a cool thing now that’s not even a factor as much anymore, is if  can you physically be there or make the time that, earlier in my career, that wasn’t an opportunity. The way that it opens it up to so many other people amd  geographic location and just time, like you don’t have to watch it in that second in order to be able to get the information, so that flexibility, I think, is really nice. It wasn’t there a few years ago.

Sam: Right and great for people  also I think there’s more of an appreciation these days for people who just have more energy late at night, and they just learn and do more. They’re more productive at night and you can watch a workshop at midnight iff you want to.

Melanie: And I have!

Sam: In your pjs, you just watch it. Melanie, I was hoping we could talk about the keynote speakers. Could you tell us a little bit about our lineup? What do we need to know about these folks?

Melanie: I’m so excited about our lineup that I’m going to share, in no particular order, because they all dazzle me. Every year I think “how did we get this lucky” or “how did I get this lucky that we were able to pull together this group?” I’m trying to think of the order in which they fall. The first keynote that happens live, because the keynotes do happen live, so those will be live streams. We’ve got a dynamic duo. We’ve got Dr. Sabrina Strings, who if you’re not familiar, wrote the book Fearing the Black Body, which is actually sittin, I did not cue this up, but it just happens to sit on my desk. The racial origins of fatphobia. But seriously, but this is how we, again, decide our program. I think, “what books am I reading? What are the books on my bookshelf? Who are the people that I’ve read and I would love to hear from?” We’ve got Sabrina who’s really going to be talking about colonialism and the way that really informed, not only our ideals about health and wellness and who is or isn’t healthy or accessible to that, but methods of control of Black, Brown and Indigenous people that have very direct relationships to  weight stigma today, right? So really looking at those historical origins. Then we’ve got Dr. Chucks. Dr. Chucks is a physician from the UK. I didn’t know about him, say a year and a half ago, and then all of a sudden I started seeing on my Instagram and LinkedIn about this book that he had edited and brought together all of these voices of lived experience. The book’s called Eating Disorders Don’t Discriminate Stories of Illness, Hope, and Recovery from Diverse Voices. And really looking at and recognizing again a longstanding issue within our field of really tending to have, historically only platform certain voices, which tend to be the stereotypical white, thin, affluent young voices. This book really chapter by chapter is a story of lived experience from people from all over the world, from all different racial and ethnic groups, from different religious backgrounds, from different ages. I mean, just really gives you such a rich examination of all the different types of ways that folks might experience eating disorders that really don’t get a lot of play time. So again, creating that through line though of looking at those kind of historical origins that Dr. Strings researches and so beautifully and eloquently writes about. What I’ll also say as a fun teaser for everybody is she writes a beautiful, eloquent academic work, but she’s a lovely, funny, down-to-earth person to talk to and listen to, as well, which I think is really nice when you again, you get to see these folks like come out from behind the podium, if you will, and let their personality shine. She’s just a lovely human being and really fun to listen to, even though she gets into the history. And then Dr. Chuck’s again is really talking about the way that this shows up in his emergency because of his work as a physician in the UK and the national healthcare system and all the ways in which folks enter into healthcare that have historically not even been recognized or even being considered as to folks that could possibly be suffering from eating disorders and really looking at amplifying those voices.

Sam:  Yes, and I’m really excited to read that book. I haven’t read it yet. I heard about it, and if I’m not mistaken, I believe there’s a chapter where Megan Jane Crabb tells her story, and we had Megan on our podcast. I was so thrilled to see that there was a chapter devoted to her story. She wrote about positive power, so that was really cool.

Melanie: So for those of you out here are hearing about that book for the first time, because it’s newer, it just came out in the past year, definitely want to recommend you check that out at wherever books are sold, but including your local independent bookseller, because we like to support them too.

Yes, so that’s the first in the order of time of when they get live streamed, that’s our first keynote. And our chief clinical officer, Dr. Gayle Brooks, is going to be moderating that. Each of them will kind of share from their areas of expertise and wisdom, and then have a discussion with them, really bringing it all together, which I think will be really great. And then the next keynote, I will be moderating will be with Virginia Sol Smith. Those of you who are hardcore podcast consumers like me might be familiar with her podcast, Burnt Toast. I’ve listened to it for years. I’m such a nerd. I’m a Patreon subscriber, I pay to listen to podcasts. Yes, podcasts are free, but sometimes some of that really good content is totally worth paying for. She didn’t ask me to say that, I’m just telling you that. I’m really excited to get to moderate her keynote, because I’ve been a fan for a long time. Those of you that don’t know Virginia or her podcast, she’s a journalist by trade, but also a woman who has lived in a body that has changed sizes over time, which a lot of people know that experience. {art of her work as a journalist was, kind of covering typical women’s things that are talked about in media, like travel and fashion, parenting and things like that, but not necessarily from a perspective that felt very authentic or genuine to her, in which her writing has evolved over time. Her book that she released last year, which I also have and would highly recommend, and in my therapy private practice, I almost universally recommend this book, even when I’m working with adults actually to have their parents read it. It’s called Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture.

When I tell you that she hits home on some of the key issues that we certainly see as clinicians, as far as when we think about, what are the experiences that might’ve contributed to the way that this person that’s sitting in front of me, the way that they see the world and the way that they see themselves in relationships in the world, the beliefs that they have about their weight, shape and size and where does that come from? You can see her like investigative journalist chops in this book, because she really lays it out. Each chapter has a very explicit theme that you can feel it come off the page. It’s all what I really admire, so well researched and resourced. This isn’t just a big opinion piece, and she does include her own perspective and opinion based on her lived experiences. She’s very clear to share that and be very clear. She really does an amazing job as a journalist being able to decode research speak. A lot of journalists don’t do a great job with that. We see a lot of headlines that are very buzzy and catch people’s attention, but can actually be very misleading about what the data says. And certainly information about weight and health is very much a thing that that happens with in the popular media, and that she really has pushed back on that and really does a beautiful job of articulating the science in a way that us non-scientists can understand and that parents in particular can understand. I’ve recommended it to the parents of children and adolescents that I’ve worked with, but also to people who are full grown adults and are still trying to untangle from some of these beliefs that were passed down by well-intentioned, loving parents and be able to make some meaning. To have them read it as an assignment for themselves to get some better understanding of the diet culture soup their parents were swimming in that might’ve informed that, but also to have as a healing opportunity to have their parents read it.

Parents kind of understand the way that this has impacted them in a way that might be very different, so I can’t say enough about that resource. I am so excited to sit and meet with her and talk about parents, you know, again, some pretty practical things to be thinking about, “this is the diet culture soup we’ve all lived in now what,” right? How do we talk to our children of all ages about some of these issues in a way that is supportive and nurturing and provides them with what they need and does not add to or create more harm. I’m particularly jazzed and feel very lucky that I get to do that.

Keynote number three, I don’t know, I’m going to put you on the spot, Sam, since you’re going to be moderating keynote number three. Do you want to talk a little bit about keynote number three? And again, not number three in order of importance, but just the way that it falls in the recording schedule.

Sam: Sure, yes. Kristi Harrison, you may know her book, If you’re in the eating disorder field, you know Anti-Diet. Along with Fearing the Black Body, I would say Anti-Diet is one of the most recommended books. When I watch a presentation, it’s almost always included as something you have to read. So yeah, so Anti-Diet and, The Wellness Trap, is one of her newer books. And she appears on podcasts, she is a prolific writer as well, and really helps unpack all of the things we really need to unlearn about dieting, wellness culture, which I think many of us can get easily sucked into, and what she talks about specifically is the fact that many of us can agree that the medical system is not always what we want or need it to be. There are companies that take advantage of that, and so they try to insert themselves and sell their products and make you think that there’s a cure for X, Y, and Z, or that something can prevent X, Y, and Z, and it can be very easy to get sucked into that. But just like our other keynotes, everything she writes about is backed by research. And of course, she has lived experience. She’s very open about, you know, she talks a lot about how she got sucked into disordered eating and how that impacted her life, so there is some of that just sort of very similar to Virginia Sol Smith. But everything that she talks about, there’s the research there, so it’s solid. I’m really excited to moderate her workshop. I’m just excited to meet her. I have lots of questions that, you know, when you’re reading these books, you never really think, “oh, my gosh, I’m going to actually have a chance to meet this person.” So I’m really excited to be able to meet her and talk with her.

Melanie: Yeah, I’m excited to watch you do that. One of the things that I anticipate is going to be a takeaway from your time with her as she shares what she prepared to share, and then you guys have the Q&A. By the way, we’re going to have opportunities for everyone to participate in Q&A. You can enter your questions into the chat. So again, I know it’s not the same as sitting in the room with people, but still, your question could be asked. I always have questions for the people that I’m reading their books or listening to their podcasts. Again, Christie’s podcast is so prolific, so many people have listened to them. I would imagine people will be itching to ask her lots of different questions. I anticipate that we’re going to walk away with, and from reading both of her books, Anti-Diet and The Wellness Trap, some tangible strategies to being able to make heads or tails of some of the information or misinformation or disinformation that is out there constantly coming at us in our social media feeds in, our in our email inboxes now, because now you get an email from any website you’ve ever visited any story you’ve ever been to any podcast you’ve ever listened to. The amount of information that’s just coming at us all the time is so much it’s hard to know what to do with, but I think she does a really great job of giving you actual tools that you can apply in the moment to think, “is this information that I want to integrate? Is this information that feels accurate through evidence based as it says who? Like a court evidence based according to who, where does this information come from? What does it mean to me? How might it help me? How might it not help me? How might it harm me? Is this information that’s even helpful for me to be consuming right now because of what I might be struggling with?”

I really think each of our keynotes are going to be very tangibly useful to people in addition to just how cool and exciting it is to listen to people that you’ve read their books and listen to their podcasts.

Sam: Oh, absolutely. I’m a big believer that media literacy should be a component of all eating disorder treatment. And she does a beautiful job of showing you how to do that. That is one wonderful thing about her talk that I’m excited for.

Ashley:  Melanie, so you are also speaking at the conference.

Melanie: Yes, I’m co-presenting with Angela Kaloudis, who is a colleague of mine that I’ve worked with for a long time, and I adore working with and presenting with. Our presentation is looking at presentations of co-occurring eating disorders and OCD, because most of us are probably familiar, there can be pretty significant co-occurrence or overlap, right? There’s a lot of shared underlying, what we’d say mechanisms, right? Like things that might activate or exacerbate strong emotions, particularly strong and heightened anxiety, are shared amongst individuals with eating disorders and OCD. It’s not uncommon that we see both. We’ll be talking quite a bit about OCD and about when we see both at the same time and looking at treatment very specifically because I love hearing theory. Theory is so important and so necessary in order to be grounded in understanding problems. We’ll definitely start with that.

What I’m looking for when I go to a workshop, therefore I try, fingers crossed, to deliver it when I give a workshop is, “but what do I do with this?” So really talking about treatment approaches and interventions that have a strong evidence base, that you might see the combination of symptoms that you might see in an eating disorder, as well as OCD and that a lot of times you can’t even really tease out the difference. Maybe it’s not that important to tease out the difference. That might be a statement that I might make in the industry.

Sam: Yeah, good stuff, good stuff. I have a question for you, Melanie, you’ve been to 10 conferences. We’re talking hundreds of hours of CEs.

Melanie: Yeah, I never have to worry about it when my renewal’s up, which is great.

Sam: I know. It’s a great perk.

Melanie: It is. I’m never short on them.

Sam: It’s a great perk. Do you have a memory of just one thing that stuck with you, something that moved you or changed your approach as a clinician?

Melanie: Oh, no. Where to begin? So many. Yeah, I can think of one. It’s actually one that’s same presenter, multiple conferences, but it left me with a certain feeling and some knowledge and information that changed the way that I conceptualize and the way that I interact with folks that I treat.

Sam:  Really?

Melanie: Yeah, I know, right?

Sam: I’m on the edge of my seat.

Melanie: I know, right? Well, Sam, you were involved. You were moderator one of the times. Dr. Adele LaFrance has spoken at our conferences several times. I think at least three that I can remember.

Sam: I think you’re right.

Melanie: Two keynotes. So going backwards to the first time. I think that when I saw her at the Renfrew Conference the first time, which was quite a few years ago as a keynote, there was something really important that stuck with me ever since then. Because I love doing therapy, I love working with eating disorders. I don’t love doing family work. I recognize how important it is, how critically important it is. And again, it gets my anxiety going. It’s harder because it’s more dynamics to navigate, and that as a clinician, I just think it’s so important, but it’s complicated, it’s hard. And so as someone who had avoided a lot of family work previously, and that’s her specialty for those of you who are not familiar. She co-developed EFFT, emotion-focused family therapy. I remember actually going into her keynote being like, “I mean, I’m here, I’m going to hear it, but family therapy is not my number one thing, so I’m only moderately interested.”  Then walking away, not only being interested, but there was a particular statement that she said when she was talking about parents or caregivers and their loved ones at any age, whether we’re talking about children, adolescents or full grown adults, because someone in the audience, I think, had asked, like, are there any family dynamics or circumstances in which you would not involve the parents in treatment? Because I think a lot of times it’s very easy for us as clinicians to really, even if we’re not intentionally doing it, blame parents or kind of over attribute some of someone’s struggle to their family, which doesn’t mean that there haven’t been any influences there. What she was talking about is that, that she has to come to it as a clinician have a starting place of believing like deeply believing that this parent, despite whatever may have happened, despite where whatever circumstance they’re there in, and I think she even gave the example, like they could be in prison for some sort of terrible crime, that even those folks that I need to have a starting place as a clinician of believing that that parent loves that child, that caregiver loves that child, and that that’s the foundation and that that’s the basis, regardless of all the other stuff. And we have to contend with the other stuff, but that we can’t just wholesale cut out parents or just, you know, think of them as a non-issue or as an unworkable issue, but that she’s willing to do the brave and hard thing and move towards working with families that have had severe fractures, severe ruptures, severe dysfunction. She was sharing about those experiences, which I just found very powerful and really has shifted the way that I think about interacting and even just talking in individual therapy with adults about their relationships with their parents and needing to have that starting pace of most parents are actually just trying to do their best. They may not have done their best. They may have made many, many mistakes, but it’s not because they inherently do not love or do not have the capacity to love and care about their children and that that has to be our starting place so that, I as a clinician, don’t start with judgment and don’t start with shame because that never really gets us anywhere in my conceptualization or in my ability to interact with this client and or their family.

So that was like introduction one. I’ve seen her speak many, many times since then, because then I became wanting to know more because I got energized and interested and was like, maybe this is for me. I do need to know more about this and have since learned a lot about her work in EFFT. But then this past year, when you moderated her keynote, Sam ,in person at the Renfrew conference, I couldn’t even tell you what it was that she said at the end, but when the keynote ended, I was not not crying. I don’t want to give everyone that visual, but I couldn’t  not. I tend to try to overly control my emotions in public settings. I know that’s not always the best. Still, I was wearing my grownup suit and everything, so I wanted to look like I was a grownup and professional. And I was boo hooing, and I had like a visceral emotional response to what she shared. And she again was talking about mothers and talking about actually reconciling, I believe, with her own mother or grandmother.

Sam: Her grandmother. She had a vision of her grandmother.

Melanie: When I tell you, like I actually like got chills, goosebumps, whatever, even just the memory, like recalling the memory of it and how impactful it was. So that’s also nice, like in that following someone’s career and her work and what she’s put out into the world and but like continuing to learn and grow even though we’re kind of talking about some of the subjects for some topics were similar. I will remember those experiences. I will remember how they made me feel first, which I think is why the memory stays with me, and then I also remember what I want that I think is important to kind of bring forward so I was not prepared for that questions, so that was my totally off the cuff answer.

Sam: Good answer, and I couldn’t agree more.

Ashley: Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Her talk was so lovely last year.

Melanie: I mean, many of Kleenex. I needed to compose myself after. In the best way. It was good emotional.

Sam: It was good.

Ashley:  I feel like I looked around and saw that from many a people last year.

Melanie: And I didn’t expect it. I didn’t, like, I didn’t go into that expecting that before, but I did walk out deeply moved.

Sam: Right. Well, you know,  I was a moderator for that talk, but I also had to introduce her and I tried to warn all of you. I was up there and I said, “look, I was in a training with Adele and I don’t think, I think I cried more in those three days than I had in the entire year.”  I warned you guys and then, at the end, everyone was crying and I went up there teary-eyed and I said, “I told you. So don’t blame me.”

 Melanie: Yeah, you did.

Sam: But it was good. She has a way of just making you feel the deepest emotions. And you’re so grateful for her ability that you can even get in touch with yourself actively.

Melanie: And again, I didn’t plan for that. I was like, “I’m in business mode today,” right? I didn’t go there for that, but that’s what I got.

Sam: Oh, I know. It was great.

Ashley: Melanie, so I think we’re coming to the end of our conversation, which is crazy to me. I feel like we have so many more questions to ask you, but could you share with us how we can get involved in the conference what do we do? How do we access it? Yeah, where do we go?

Melanie: Sure, for sure. The easiest way I think is to go directly to the conference website. So it’s easy to remember, renfrewconference.com. It’s its own website. If you go to the regular renfrewcenter.com website, you can find it. There’s links there, but you have to click like two more extra buttons, so why not go directly to the source? I find the user interface pretty easy to go ahead and register. And what I really like is that you can see everything, you know, before you even register. We talked obviously about the keynotes today, but we didn’t even get to talk about the rest of it. I mean, there are so many workshops of so many, just a large variety of the different types of topics, different types of speakers, you know, we make sure that we have a decent amount of workshops that are going to speak directly to registered dietitians, which again are open to everybody. Things that speak directly to medical professionals and providers who are more than that, so you can see the whole kit and caboodle before you even register. The registration is actually very user friendly. I struggle with executive functioning at times, and if the registration isn’t easy, I may never do it. So good news is we have made sure and tested it many times that it’s actually very, very easy to go ahead and get registered quickly.

Sam: Yeah, that’s great. Melanie, thank you so much for being here with us today. This was a great conversation as usual. I think this is your third time on our podcast.

Melanie:  I appreciate that you asked me to come talk about things that I like talking about.  This is probably, from the nerd part of me, one of my favorite things to do and to talk about because I am a hardcore conference junkie, can’t help it.

Sam: Well, we love that about you. And thank you to our audience for listening today. We hope to see you again, maybe at another episode, but maybe at the Renfrew Conference. Bye for now.

Ashley: Thank you for listening with us today on All Bodies. All Foods. presented by the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders.

Sam: We’re looking forward to you joining us next time as we continue these conversations.

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