Brought to you by the Virginia Mental Health Counselors Association
About the Event
This 3-hour training explores how trauma-driven survival strategies can evolve into clinically significant symptoms, including eating disorders and personality adaptations. Through an integrative, trauma-informed lens, presenters will examine how behaviors rooted in safety, control, and attachment can become maladaptive over time, impacting psychological functioning as well as physical and nutritional health. Emphasis is placed on helping clinicians move beyond symptom-focused treatment toward a deeper understanding of the underlying survival mechanisms shaping client presentations.
Training Description
Eating disorders and personality adaptations often emerge as attempts to cope with overwhelming or chronic trauma. This training brings together psychological, nutritional, and medical perspectives to help clinicians understand how trauma is held in both the mind and body. Participants will learn how trauma responses can manifest across diagnostic categories, how eating disorder behaviors interact with personality patterns, and how medical and nutritional complications reinforce psychological distress. The training will offer practical, evidence-based strategies for assessment, case conceptualization, and treatment planning, supporting clinicians in providing compassionate, integrated care that addresses both survival and healing.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this training, participants will be able to:
1. Identify how trauma-related survival strategies can manifest as eating disorders and personality adaptations across the lifespan.
2. Describe the role of control, safety, attachment, and nervous system dysregulation in the development and maintenance of eating disorder behaviors.
3. Recognize common trauma-driven belief systems (“stuck points”) that underlie eating disorders and personality patterns.
4. Differentiate between trauma adaptations and characterological pathology to reduce stigma and improve case conceptualization.
5. Explain the psychological, medical, and nutritional consequences of eating disorder behaviors and how these factors reinforce trauma responses.
6. Assess eating disorder risk and trauma severity using an integrated, trauma-informed framework.
7. Apply evidence-based, trauma-responsive interventions when working with clients presenting with eating disorders and complex comorbidities.
8. Collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary providers to support comprehensive and ethical treatment planning.
9. Identify early warning signs indicating the need for higher levels of care or medical intervention.
The schedule is as follows:
10:00 am - 11:30am Part One of Spring Workshop
11:45 am - 12:45 pm Lunch / Break for VAMHCA Annual Membership Meeting
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm Part Two of Spring Workshop
Earn 3 CEUs for attending this event.
About the Presenters
Victoria Wendell is a licensed therapist specializing in the treatment of eating disorders and co-occurring trauma. She earned her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Marymount University and spent 18 months working in a residential treatment setting with adults experiencing acute eating disorders, trauma, and complex comorbidities. She currently provides outpatient care at Rock Recovery, a nonprofit eating disorder treatment center in Arlington, VA. Passionate about the intersection of trauma and eating disorders, Victoria is committed to helping clinicians deepen their understanding of eating disorders as trauma-informed adaptations and apply compassionate, evidence-based care in practice.
Paige Townley is a licensed therapist experienced in treating eating disorders and co-occurring mental health disorders in partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient settings. Paige graduated from Marymount University and received the Outstanding Student of the Year in Clinical Mental Health Counseling Award. She has presented nationally and internationally on the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on eating disorder treatment and utilizing logotherapy to promote post-traumatic growth in refugees. Paige has been involved in a project for scale development of disordered eating and behaviors in males and has presented nationally on the need for eating disorder research in males.
John Perry is a resident in counseling specializing in the treatment of personality disorders, self-injurious behaviors, and OCD. They earned their Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Marymount University and has been trained in DBT, working in an outpatient setting with both adolescents and adults experiencing behavioral, cognitive, interpersonal, and emotional dysfunction. He currently works at the Counseling Center Group in VA. They have presented nationally and internationally on comparative treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder in the U.S. vs. Italy, utilizing logotherapy to promote post-traumatic growth in refugees, and was the recipient of the Mediterranean Region Counselor Association’s outstanding leadership award in 2023. John is passionate about further clinical understanding of how trauma can shape personality and inform dysfunctional behaviors, such as disordered eating and other risky behaviors.