A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF LICENSED PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS’ THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIPS WORKING WITH CLIENTS WITH BODY IMAGE CONCERNS

Counselors working with clients with body image issues might also struggle with body image concerns, and how they manage this struggle within the therapeutic relationship could be a key factor in treatment effectiveness. Exploring and understanding successful counselors’ methods would benefit counselors, clients, and society. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore body image concerns of licensed professional counselors who currently work with clients concerned or diagnosed with body image, disordered eating, and eating disorder symptomology. The theoretical framework comprised feminist psychodynamic theory, which suggests that internalizing culture is part of developing individual perspectives on body image, and objectification theory, indicating how Western beautify standards have led to the objectification and sexualization of thin women. Answering the research question required exploring counselors’ perspectives of how their body image influences the therapeutic relationship with clients who present with body image struggles. Moustakas’s transcendental phenomenology was the approach used to explore the experiences of licensed professional counselors with their body images when working with clients with body image distortions. Data analysis occurred following the seven steps of Moustakas’s modified van Kaam method. Analysis of the data collected from semistructured interviews with 11 participants elicited three significant themes: (a) working with clients who struggle with body image concerns affects counselors’ body image awareness, (b) working with clients who struggle with body image increases counselors’ positive body iv image, and (c) education and supervision are needed to address body image when working with clients with body image concerns. The study has implications for direct therapeutic work for clinicians, counselor educators, and supervisors. Clinical improvement could occur through body image–specific training, continuing education, and supervision in working with the body image of both counselor and client.