My Approach

Anne Cuthbert MA, LPC, LMHC
Owner & Practitioner of “Food Is Not The Enemy Counseling”

As a therapist, I will help you discover how to:

  • Eat and enjoy the foods you really love, without worrying about gaining weight
  • Accept and even like your body
  • Find and maintain your healthy weight naturally through uncovering the underlying causes for your behaviors
  • Focus on and improve your relationships by helping you move away from blaming food and your body
  • Learn to like yourself, your whole self

As a counselor, I go beyond traditional talk therapy to help you to learn healthier coping skills around food, your body, and your life in general. I use a counseling approach that will help you address the root causes of your problems around food.

Through therapy, you can end the cycle of using food and hating your body to cope with your emotional needs.

In counseling, I’ll help you make step-by-step changes that will help you overcome your problems around food and help you feel good about your body. Food issues and having a poor body image are symptoms of deeper needs that need to be met.

In order to make permanent changes you need to get to the root of the problem and find healthier ways to meet your needs. In the end, counseling will help you overcome your problems with food and how you feel about your body.

Overall, you will develop a richer and more satisfying life.

I am an acting board member of CREDN, Columbia River Eating Disorders Network. ASDAH member, Association of Size Diversity and Health, Internal Policy Committee, Membership Committee and Conference Planning Committee (co-chair).

Look for my forthcoming book

“If Your Hunger Could Talk:
Real Steps to Help You Find Freedom from Food and Weight Obsession”

I know first hand what it is like to deal with food and body issues. For years, I struggled with food issues and hating my body. I compared myself to every woman I saw and resisted exercising refusing to give into what other people told me I should do and how I should look. I ate to hide how I was feeling and to avoid being close to anyone. I thought I couldn’t be loved if I was fat.

Now, I am pleased to say all that has changed for the better. I no longer use food to cope. I feel good about myself, my body, and my life. I am now passionate about helping others recover as well. I love that my job as a counselor is helping you to eat whatever you want and feel good about it.

Along with my personal and professional experience with eating disorders, I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California and a Licensed Professional Counselor in Oregon and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington. I hold a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Antioch University, Santa Barbara, CA.

My counseling experience spans over 16 years and has included studying and working with experts in the eating disorder field, teaching counseling and communication skills classes, and assisting and managing several personal growth seminars and support groups. I have provided counseling to people with a variety of relationship issues, including adults who were abused as children.

I look forward to working with you.  -Anne

These are the steps we will take that will
help you finally make peace with food:

Step 1: Shameless Eating

This first step will derail your drive to binge eat. You will end the cycle of viewing food as good or bad that translates into good me / bad me. You will learn to change your mindset around food, begin to let go of criticism, and change your interaction with food. You will take the first steps to greater self-trust with the foods you eat and with yourself.

Step 2: Crack the Portion Control Code

In this step, you will learn how to connect to your body’s cues of hunger and fullness. You will gain trust with how to feed your body what and how much it wants. We will resolve the underlying emotional issues that keep you stuck in fear of hunger or fullness.

Step 3: If Your Hunger Could Talk: Listen to Your Body’s Wisdom 

During this step, which takes place throughout our work together, we will go deeper into your body to discover what you actually want and need. Listen to what you are hungry for and feed yourself what will lead to true fulfillment and joy.

Step 4: Enjoy a Body Love Fest

In this step you will directly address your body image. You will learn to experience feeling good in the clothes you wear and living in your body now, rather than in some future time while your life passes by. Through exercises and techniques, you will experience your body from new perspectives while letting go of societal misconceptions that hold you back.

Step 5: Exercise for Pleasure

In this step you will learn how to engage in healthy exercise habits. Whether you exercise too much or avoid exercise, you will take the steps to enjoy moving your body while still listening to what it needs.

Step 6: Move into Your Life with Self-Trust, Self-Love and Acceptance

In this last step, you will learn how to have a long term relationship of self-trust, self-love and self-acceptance. We will create structured, healthy boundaries around food and body image that allow you to enjoy your life more fully while honoring your relationship with food to help you identify areas of growth and improvement.