The Fat Psychologist Podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00]

[00:00:05] Intro

Ninna: Hi, I am Ninna Makrinov. I am a psychologist, and yes, I am fat. I am the fat psychologist. I love who I am. I want everyone to embrace who they are, fat or skinny, queer or straight, white, brown or black, funny or boring, whatever. Saying, this sounds easy. Doing it can be hard, and that's where this podcast comes in.

Welcome to the Fat Psychologist Podcast. Let's make decisions based on information we understand and question, and not based on what others say we should think of ourselves. In this series, I explore happiness at every size.

Inclusivity is at the heart of everything I do. Every word is captured with care. You will find precise transcripts on the show notes and wherever you listen.

If you like my podcast, subscribe and share with your [00:01:00] friends. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook Threads, and Blue Sky at the Fight Psychologist and on my website, thefatpsychologist.com.

[00:01:13] Today's Episode

Ninna: In today's episode, we will be thinking about therapy. I've been discussing therapy quite a lot in different episodes, and I'm super happy to be talking to Cat and Jo who go online by The Fat Counsellors.

They're based in the UK, in Bristol and they were kind enough to accept an invitation from an email to join me on the episode today. They have been working to ensure talking therapy is fat inclusive for some years, and they will be talking about their experiences and also a training that they run, for everyone to challenge fat bias.

The episode will be [00:02:00] structured in the following way. So if you wanna jump through, go and find the next chapters. We will start thinking about how Jo and Cat came about The Fat Counsellors, how then they have addressed weight stigma in therapy. And how they've expanded their training beyond therapists, so all of us can have access to how we challenge fat bias in ourselves and in others. We will then have a little section explaining what the role of talking therapies is; because it's very different around the world, we will compare therapists, counsellors, psychologists, and other roles. Therapy has been really important to me in different countries in Chile, in the UK and in Mexico where I have lived. And there are distinctions. So it's really important that if you're listening to this from somewhere that it's not the UK, you're aware of what the regulations are in your own space. We will then go into the biases [00:03:00] that exist in medical and social context. So we'll talk a little bit about fat bias and the importance of anti diet culture. And we will finalize with practical steps for inclusive therapy or for finding a fat inclusive therapist. We will then say goodbye and we'll think about what we will do in the future.

If you want to participate as well, remember you can come to the podcast as a guest. You can send me questions, voice notes, and we will integrate them in the episodes. Let's then start our conversation.

[00:03:33] The origins of The Fat Counsellors

Jo Reader: Hi. Yeah, thanks for having us. I am Joe Reader and I'm a psychotherapist and supervisor and trainer. I work in North Bristol. I have had a long career working with teenagers and families, in other careers, so that remains quite a big part of my current work. I also work with people with ADHD and menopause and narcissism. Those are my [00:04:00] main specialties outside of the body image work, which I also love doing.

Ninna: Would you like to tell a bit about how you met?

Jo Reader: Our story of how we met and how we came to become The Fat Counsellors and create our training together, started when I was doing my training as a counsellor about 15 years ago now. And if you come on a training, you'll hear the longer story of how I got to this point. But in my training, I decided to write a dissertation, do a bit of research, on whether weight stigma was present in a therapy room and if clients can escape weight stigma in therapy. So I wrote a dissertation on that, was sort of based on my own experiences in therapy and my own story of being a fat person from very, very young, um, always the biggest in the class and all the things that came with that. I then wrote an article for Therapy Today, a couple of years after . it's sort of an abridged version of my dissertation about fat stigma in therapy. Cat came across my [00:05:00] article during her training and she will tell you the next part of the story.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah, thanks Joe. So, yeah, so I trained after Joe. I've sort of been all sorts of sizes throughout my life, but even when I was quite small I was always deemed as fat. And during my training, I was trying to look at all the feelings and shame I felt around that. And I came across Joe's article and it was reading that and the book Thrill by Lindy West. Generally realizing that maybe my body wasn't the problem. Maybe it's about how bodies are treated. later on, after I qualified myself and Joe sort of kept in contact. Joe had done some training before on anti fat bias, weight stigma around how to look at that. And I said, we need to join forces.

[00:05:46] Training Beyond Therapists

Cat Chappell (she/her): And we started off doing training for therapists, just therapists only. Because we realised there was such a gap in training. There's nothing about bodies, regardless of what anyone's bringing, what discipline, anything. Everyone is bringing a body to [00:06:00] the room and it, it's just not there. We realized actually is everyone needs to know this.

So now we've split the training so part 1 is for everyone. It's just around anti fat bias, what it is, what it looks like, how to unlearn that body shame, because there's nobody who's safe from this. People in fat bodies and bigger bodies are treated much worse, but there's generally anyone who isn't safe from this kind of bias. Anyone can come to that. And then the part two was more targeted. Now you know this, how is the best way to be with clients in the room in different ways of doing that?

Jo Reader: One of the things we realized when we first just started doing it with therapists is that there was so much personal work to do first. That's why we divided it now up into two separate courses. To start with people come and explore their anti-fat bias, they're internalized fatphobia, and we give a bit of a history and of anti-fat bias and talk through body acceptance. And the second course is when [00:07:00] people come and do some work about how to work with it in the therapy room.

Ninna: What you're saying makes a lot of sense with my personal history as well. 'cause it's a the story I'm hearing from a lot of people, particularly living in fat bodies: I was always seen as fat, although really looking back I wasn't. And then the internalized fat bias and the fact that I believe I'm worth less and that other people tell me the same. And then how we work with that. And then that, I suppose in your work goes beyond into how that then permeates the works that some therapists do. So it's great that you've extended your training to anyone.

Jo Reader: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We initially realized that therapists need to have done their own work. In our training, we are taught to make sure we have good self-awareness of our own biases and prejudices, and yet bodies aren't talked about in that way in training. Then what we realized that there are people who might want to go to therapy or just [00:08:00] might want to explore their own body image can come along to that first course because it's not catered towards therapists, although many of them come so they can come and do part two.

Ninna: Brilliant.

[00:08:10] Understanding the Role of Therapists and Counsellors

Ninna: For our audience as well, who might not all be English or British or whatever,

Jo Reader: Yeah.

Ninna: because I'm not, I'm from Chile and, and actually based on what I'm seeing from listeners where they're from all over, which is lovely. Having come to the UK as a migrant after studying, I call myself psychologist because I am, and I am an organizational psychologist, not a clinical psychologist, and not a counsellor.

So I wonder if it's worth us explaining to our listeners in the UK or other countries, if you're aware of how this works and what a counsellor does versus what a clinical psychologist does, or any other psychologist, if that makes sense.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Essentially we've been saying therapists a lot, but what we're talking about is counselors and psychotherapists. They're [00:09:00] essentially what's known as talking therapy in the UK. So it's generally one therapist with one client, unless they're doing group work, looking with them normally around their history, around what's happening there, looking at anxiety, depression, any sorts of things, grief, counselling, whatever's happening for there.

In England, when we do our training, most good training says that you need to have your own therapy, that you can look at your own stuff because the danger is, between you and your client, you are at risk of bringing too much of your own stuff into it or not being able to clearly see what's happening because it's all too mucky. Whilst, as in if I'm with a client and there's a bereavement , and maybe I've experienced bereavement in the past of having looked at those things, going, oh, I know how I felt about that. Those feelings of mine, put them to one side and be with what's happening with this person. That's where you do the work. And what we realize is unless people have actually done that, there's not that look at bodies and how bodies are supposed to be [00:10:00] societally.

[00:10:00] Biases in Medical and Social Contexts

Cat Chappell (she/her): In the UK we have a National Health Service and the very nature of the medical advice and a lot of the community, although it's getting better, is very anti-fat bias. You know, it's used for literal gatekeeping.

Ninna: I don't know if you saw this, 'cause I saw it today in an article in the newspaper online that looked at something that we all know already, but the kind of medical bias. They were saying around 65% of people in the UK are classed as overweight or more. A third of the trusts in England, I think it was, I might be misquoting the number, do not perform certain operations on fat people. So bias is everywhere.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Hmm.

Ninna: Um, if it's there on counselling where you're going to talk to someone. So I've been telling people a lot in the podcast that it's really important to seek help and seek support.

It's helped me a lot in my life, and that's partly why I wanted the clarification because in the [00:11:00] UK, counselling, talking therapies or then trained counselors is not the same as a trained psychologist and a clinical psychologist in the UK has much more specific hospital related approach than a counsellor does.

Like, for example, in Chile, where I'm from, a psychologist would be the same as a counsellor. We don't have the distinction. So you couldn't be a counsellor without being a psychologist.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Mm-hmm.

Jo Reader: Mm.

Ninna: in the UK it's a different training process and

Jo Reader: Yeah,

Ninna: So it varies a lot in different places and hence I thought it was important to clarify that.

Jo Reader: yeah.

Ninna: Um, and then same with your experience in terms of bodies, I came across fat liberation really late in life, probably the last five years. And I was very much bought into fat phobia and, and the fact that I had to lose weight if I wanted to be

Jo Reader: mm

Ninna: accepted and loved, and it was all on me.

And, and that [00:12:00] changes, doesn't it?

Jo Reader: Well, it does. And I, and

Cat Chappell (she/her): It really does.

Jo Reader: the workshop is, is predominantly what we explore with that about that understanding of how we've been told to and conditioned to think about our bodies, and this is quite global now. It was much more Western at one stage , but it is quite global now.

Helps explore where the roots of this anti-fat bias stem from so that we can start to get people to just stop and think about these assumptions we have, they've become really baked into our culture. And so they're this really internalized hatred and shame about our bodies if they are big or, as you were saying, the large majority of the population are over that threshold set by the BMI, which is not a useful tool for anything. And so we help people unpick the roots of that and to start to consider thinking about their bodies in different [00:13:00] ways. Because this sort of conditioning, of brainwashing is so prevalent in our society. It's everywhere you look, you know, it isn't just medical, it's

Ninna: Yeah.

Jo Reader: you want to go to the theatre and can't sit in a seat or on a plane, you can't fit in the seat. You wanna get medical treatment, you can't get that. It's how fat people are portrayed in the media. We do a whole thing on our workshop about all the different ways, and I mean, it just, medically the thing that churns me up the most is how people can't get fertility treatment or trans-affirming surgery, gender affirming surgery, because of BMI. I mean, let alone the people needing a hip replacement. It just makes me very angry that bias. They're very much needed lifesaving surgery that people need.

Ninna: Yeah.

Jo Reader: 'cause it's a complete and utter barring of, of our rights, actually, medical rights.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah. Part of the structure of the course is, as Jo said, history of where it comes from, through the route of the trans Atlantic slave trade that happened colonially, within England and [00:14:00] Europe through to the present day and how that happened. Part of it is unwrapping that and actually allowing people to see themselves beyond their bodies, but also for those who attend to have what is known as thin privilege, as in are in a body that's not gate kept where you can fit in most things. About the difficulties that people face when you are in a, a bigger body, because something that we say is you can't self-love your way out of oppression. I can think of myself as highly as I do now and I love that, but it's not going to buy me much better treatment within surgery, it's not going to make a seat bigger.

With activism, I feel much more empowered now to say this is the wrong size for me. To test out professionals beforehand saying, I'm a fat person, so I need robust furniture, and is this a problem? So I know it's safe and I'm not wasting my time where somebody's all right, and then they're being awkward, and then they start mentioning my diet, and that's just like. I don't wanna have this [00:15:00] conversation. It is dehumanizing. I'm a person. Don't think about what you think I might eat, or my lifestyle is. I'm not a before picture. In the age of Ozempic, especially now fat people are seen as a before picture, I'm a human being right now, treat me as such.

Ninna: Yeah. And also for many of us, it's just something we are, and it's not something we can or want to even, but even if we did want to, it's not something that we can easily manage as like these, these assumptions that people make or need to Exactly. Or need to or want to, or like why should we, you know?

Jo Reader: Absolutely. Absolutely. And there is a, is a massive assumption in society that if you are fat, that you must be wanting to do something about that.

Ninna: Yeah. And it's something that you should be doing. So I don't know if you've experienced this, but it's like a moral high ground. Like being thin is morally better in our society.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yes.

Ninna: I disagree with that, but that's how society sees it, I think.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Oh, absolutely. And [00:16:00] that's the other thing, a common misconception with the work that we do, is that we don't like thin people. no, we love everyone, or that we're upset if anyone wants to go on a diet or if anyone wants to use Ozempic or any of those things. And none of those things are the case. The argument around that is about people have the right to exist in their body regardless of whatever size that is. And the thing is as well, is if an individual says I want to be smaller, especially if it's for gatekeeping methods, like I need to get this surgery and I want to have children and they won't let me otherwise, those sorts of things. or I just want to fit in things and be treated better, there's absolutely no way we would be...

Jo Reader: We understand.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah, why not? It's about giving that information around the diet cycle, about actually how hard it is to, to keep weight off. To get rid of the shame when that doesn't happen, we're already seeing it at the bounce back with Ozempic, that as soon as [00:17:00] it's people were off it the weight's coming on. And that's biology. But it's always, always seen as personal failure.

Ninna: Yeah, and I think that to me, my worry with a lot of these trends is that actually when we look at the literature. We only know in the literature normally what happens in a very short period of time, up to three years normally. And any research that goes beyond tends to show that whatever method we use and actually particularly quicker with Ozempic, we'll put the weight back on.

Not everyone. And that's the bit where it's complicated because we are looking at general data rather than...

Jo Reader: don't know enough about that yet anyway. We haven't got enough evidence. Yeah, and I think there's two things I was gonna say then.

[00:17:47] The Importance of Anti-Diet Culture

Jo Reader: One was just to be clear that we are anti-diet, but we're not anti people who diet.

Ninna: So what...

Jo Reader: your body your rules.

Ninna: How would you define then anti diet?

Cat Chappell (she/her): That we would never promote it, as people or [00:18:00] as practitioners or encourage clients to do that. Part of being a therapist is being as neutral as you can, bystander, but also that you notice if harm is happening. So say, and I've had this before, or clients like, I wanna go on diet and Okay, tell me how that is. And they just reflect it and actually they feel fine and they are well, and generally it's not affecting them. Then good. Great. And we just, we don't need to talk about that. we talk about noticing harm is when they're like, I need to go on a diet. And they're like, why? And it's like, because I've been told to, I have to, I want to. And then they get obsessed and upset about calories and things. And it's like, again, it'd be like, what I'm noticing is how this process is making you feel. And I'm concerned about that. They get to choose what they do.

Jo Reader: Yeah. It's observing to them what we're seeing before us really, but we wouldn't have any kind of agenda with a client. And that's what we are training other therapists to not have an agenda, but to have an awareness of [00:19:00] diet culture. And because of what we know about diet culture and how problematic it is on so many levels, particularly for health, it's helpful for people to understand that history. They've got a choice then, haven't they? Clients and therapists, the people we work with, have a more informed choice to decide what you want to do with your body and how you want to treat it. Aubrey Gordon, who is an amazing fat activist, author and podcaster says diets haven't worked for five decades, they're not going to start working now. what. And what we do know, as you were just referencing, Ninna, is that in the longer term the evidence is that dieting is much more harmful to our health, much more. And so as therapists we would not be promoting something that we believe has been proven to be harmful.

Ninna: Absolutely. And I imagine the other thing that as I've fat person, and it's never happened to me in therapy, to be [00:20:00] super honest, so my therapists have never picked or been horrible about fatness. They haven't even been surprised with my stories or they haven't shown it, which is brilliant.

But I imagine another thing can happen. 'cause I've seen myself have this reaction when I've learned more about anti-racism, for example, and I was super shocked. And, and if a therapist doesn't have the knowledge, then they might be asking those same questions , or not believing our experiences or questioning the fact that it might have been a bad doctor rather than a general thing or

Jo Reader: mm-hmm

Ninna: invalidating what we are seeing or not even seeing it if they haven't thought about it. Particularly if they have not shared our lived experience. And of course I don't expect a counsellor to have shared all my lived experiences 'cause that's impossible.

Jo Reader: That's what training's for, isn't it? To update our knowledge and that, for us is we know that this is such a given fact in our society that fat is bad, fat is unhealthy, and dieting is good. It is slightly [00:21:00] changing, but it is still very embedded. Yes. I mean, it's barely changing and I think

Ninna: Um, I, I think it's getting worse with

Jo Reader: Yes,

Ninna: Ozempic now. It's like

Jo Reader: Yeah.

Ninna: everywhere.

Jo Reader: of course we are in a yes, sort of post anti diet place right now. And as therapists, therapy should be one of the very most safest places to go, to be free from judgment and for your therapist to be able to have good self-awareness of their bias. For it not to be unconscious. And what we have quickly realized is that because it is not discussed and it's baked into every part of our society. Therapists haven't stopped and thought about this too. And I'm so glad to hear you haven't experienced that, Ninna. it is really common.

Ninna: I mean, I can only imagine because it happens when I go to, not so much in the UK as well, but in doctors it happens.

Jo Reader: Exactly. And therapists , like anyone, if you haven't done any work on [00:22:00] this and explored the bias and understand a different perspective to it, that unconscious bias seeps into the work. And it happens even just in that kind of post-Christmas , a client might be saying something about everything that they ate and the counsellor will join in. Because it's just part of settling into to say, "oh, I know, yes, I need to cut back this month", or whatever. You know, it's so normalized to talk around bodies and food like that, that it is happening.

Ninna: Yeah,

Jo Reader: you know, in very subtle ways. Very well-meaning ways, bonding.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Saying, "oh, I've been good", or, "this is bad". Or imagine, you know, as a client, maybe they, they lost a lot of weight and they said, "oh, I've lost X amount of weight" and their therapist goes, "oh, great. That's so good. Well done. Congratulations".

Ninna: Yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Put value on it. You've already said your before weight was wrong, this one is right.

Jo Reader: Yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): And then if it puts on, then you already know. If you ever tell them that your, your therapist thinks that your body is wrong now.

Jo Reader: And that's so harmful, this rhetoric in society about praising weight loss because although people feel [00:23:00] good, everyone likes praise, right? It's what's not said. It's what's not said. When that isn't going on, you are regaining the weight and everybody will describe that. Even though they're hearing the praise, they're kind of going, oh, so you had a judgment before?

Ninna: And it's damaging for everyone, not only those of us who are fat, I just read a study that on a review showed that a hundred percent of studies that had studied depression and fat bias have shown a correlation

Jo Reader: Mm-hmm.

Ninna: it's at every weight.

So it's people who are thin are still struggling with this in trying to not be big. And those of us who are big are sometimes judging ourselves.

Jo Reader: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Ninna: Unless we've done the work and are going, actually not my problem, yours. But even then it's hard to do, call ahead to see if there's reasonable adjustments. So I've started doing that when I go to conferences: I need a big seat, so let me see the space, 'cause otherwise it's my point going. People, even when they're really accommodating, I've ended up sitting in the back of a room with a sofa for [00:24:00] myself and it requires a lot of self-assurance to be in that space because you are more seen even.

Jo Reader: Yeah. You have to be extremely resilient.

The more I do this work, people can get really on board with realizing how toxic this culture is around the anti-fat dialogue and the noise. But what, even when we've done that work, we still have to place ourselves back out into the world where we are not meant to fit. It's not being designed for us and however resilient we are. Like you say that image of " I've been given a sofa, thanks". But it's at the back, this is gonna be bloody obvious while you're sat on your own on a sofa and you are isolated, excluded again. It's not inclusive.

Ninna: Yeah.

Jo Reader: It's a step that it's still not inclusive. It's very painful.

Ninna: Yeah.

[00:24:47] Practical Steps for Inclusive Therapy

Ninna: If you were thinking of anyone who's going to a talking therapy. What would be the advantages of going to a counsellor that has been to your [00:25:00] training or has had this knowledge, it doesn't need to be your training necessarily, versus someone who's not informed on fat bias, fat liberation?

Cat Chappell (she/her): I'll start with the practical stuff. The practical thing is, is we ask everyone to look at their chairs and think about them and think about how accessible are they are, especially those in private practice. A bit harder when it's provided by the place, but still advocate for something better. And we also say, put on your website or a picture of what it looks like. So people have got an idea of quite how accessible it is. You know, we've got much better with disabled access in terms of wheelchair access and doing that. It needs to be more. It's just saying, here is the space, here are the steps, here are the wideness, here is how it is.

Um, that sort of practical

Jo Reader: Accessibility, isn't it?

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah.

Jo Reader: Even having that on your, your website shows that you've thought about it and the advantage is you're not gonna have to squeeze into a chair week after week after. It doesn't fit. I mean, it's number one, isn't it? Number one, you feel comfortable and the fact that it's been thought about, you know that you have been [00:26:00] thought about literally.

Cat Chappell (she/her): I had someone cry assessment because I said to them, look, just to let you know, here's the chairs, here's what the size of them are. This is my body size. I fit in that. Do you think that's gonna be okay? They were like, nobody's ever asked me that before, ever. Just such a small difference, but I'll let Jo speak about what it's like then, just the experience of being with a therapist who's done the training.

Jo Reader: Therapists have been through our training, we can say with confidence, we can guarantee they are not going to accidentally prejudice you, they are going to be aware and they will be open to challenge and it will be a really safe space, particularly when if you are in a body that is far less socially acceptable, you can go without having to worry that your therapist is going to accidentally or not so accidentally, deliberately cause harm. The safety in going to a therapist and talk about that. And you're not going to get someone going, oh, you are not fat, you are [00:27:00] beautiful, which is just the worst thing, FYI anyone listening. Never say that because you can be both for, for starters. But also our bodies aren't here just to decorate the planet. So,

Ninna: Yep.

Jo Reader: So, which is my personal catchphrase. It's the safety of going and knowing those awkward comments or side glances or, you know, just this true, true safety in a non-judgmental space around bodies. At the end of the day, we've all got a body. There's a hierarchy of bodies in our society, let's not pretend there isn't. We encourage the therapists that work with us to talk about that in the room and how to do that in really gentle ways. And we know that clients prefer the congruence and openness of these conversations, gently, sensitively, to happen rather than not happen. Things being unsaid is far worse.

Ninna: It's the elephant in the room, isn't it?

[00:27:48] Jo, Cat and their bodies

Ninna: And talking about that, that's something I normally ask at the beginning of the podcast. And I completely forgot this time when you were introducing yourselves, many of the people who will be. Listening to the podcast won't be [00:28:00] seeing us. So can you please both describe yourselves physically?

Jo Reader: Oh yeah.

Ninna: So who'd like to start? Jo, I know you need to go. So how about you go first?

Jo Reader: Oh, okay. How would I describe myself physically? I am a white female. I'm five foot five and fat. I've got brown, curly hair, well, quite grey these days. I still say brown, which is interesting, isn't it? Predominantly brown. That's how I describe my body.

Ninna: Brilliant, Cat?

Cat Chappell (she/her): I am a white cis female with I don't know what colour my hair is at the moment 'cause I dye it too much, uh, short, curly hair. If you think about the categories I thing, it's like you call a mid fat. So a UK clothes size between sort of 24 to 28, depending on where you're shopping. Because, yeah, that's the thing. When you always see the head and the shoulders, you don't really know.

Jo Reader: Yes, what Cat's alluding to is, I dunno if people have come across it, something called fategories,

Ninna: Yeah, I, I.[00:29:00]

Jo Reader: You've come across it, Ninna?

Ninna: Yeah, I mean, explain it as well, but I did cover it in detail in episode two. But yeah, go for it. Go for it for a quick intro. Yeah.

Jo Reader: There's a spectrum obviously, of fat. It's not just like you are over this and you are all fat. Like, there's still a spectrum of sizes and with that become privilege and access, of course. And Cat and I both, I'm size 24, 26, UK dress size. We still have a lot of privilege of being able to shop these days, buy clothes, and just about fit, just about fit into

Ninna: Yeah.

Jo Reader: seats. Um, you know, we recognize that.

Ninna: Because I'm around the same, I'm like a 22, 24, and I can still fit in most seats. Maybe not as comfortability, but I recognize that privilege in relation to others who are bigger because obviously,

Jo Reader: Oh yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah.

Jo Reader: And it's so important to understand that too. It's not just all fat people have the same issues,

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah.

Jo Reader: to just talk about like that.

Ninna: and obviously,

Cat Chappell (she/her): And there's the intersections of it as well. You know,

Ninna: yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): I've got privilege in being white, able bodied, cisgendered, middle [00:30:00] class, or as soon as you add all those intersections on, yeah

Jo Reader: yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): More oppression.

[00:30:04] Oppression: centring fatness

Ninna: Yeah, and we are cantering fatness in this discussion, but it doesn't mean that we've forgotten the rest because again, it's really important that when anyone, so I do encourage people to go to counselling, therapy, coaching, which is different again, that is done in that environment where someone else can guide us. Having thought about all of these issues because being fat inclusive also requires us to be,

Jo Reader: yeah,

Ninna: Race aware and to be gender aware and Jo, you've mentioned that already. And all of these issues because I don't wanna do the same blunders, which I will keep doing because even with anti fatness, even being a fat person, I still have things to learn,

Jo Reader: Yes.

Ninna: but at least be aware of my biases or be able to be told, this is a bias, Ninna, pick it up.

Jo Reader: Exactly. Exactly.

Cat Chappell (she/her): That openness to [00:31:00] be questioned. I'd say that for anyone, regardless of when you're with a therapist, I'm always like, "ask them the question even if it sounds rude", because if they can't answer you as to how they practice or why without defensiveness, then,

Jo Reader: yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): then that doesn't bode well.

Jo Reader: You know where you stand. Yeah.

Ninna: Brilliant.

[00:31:18] Find Jo and Cat

Ninna: And if people then wanted to find a counsellor that's aware.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Hmm.

Ninna: In the US we might look at something like a health at every weight practitioner, which we don't have so much in the UK. So particularly for those in the UK now, where can they find you in particular and where can they find others?

So again, Joe, would you like to go first because I know you need to go in four minutes.

Jo Reader: Yes. Thank you. We do have a Facebook group called the Fat Counselors, if you are a therapist, please come and join that and you can hear about our training and things like that. You can find me on Facebook and my website is joreader.com. I'm the fat acceptance therapist on Instagram [00:32:00] and as with Cat as well, anybody can get in touch with us and obviously can work with us, but we can also signpost people, we hold a list of people that have done our training and some people are happy for that to be shared.

Cat Chappell (she/her): Yeah. Also we have a website. It's thefatcounsellors.co.uk. So details of all our courses, how to get hold of us, all those things. I'm at catchappel.co.uk as well. And as I say, we've got a network, future plans is to make some sort of database of practitioners who have done the training. But that's on our expanding to do list.

Jo Reader: Just to say about our training, we do an online weekly, six week course in September and October each year, we've got some spaces left for that, if anybody's interested in that please go on our website and have a look, or contact us. And then we do the part 2 for therapists in January, February time.

We also have an on demand so people could just buy and do it in their own time, don't need to come to a course or a group to do it. They can buy part one just to do at home.

[00:32:55] Outro

Ninna: Brilliant. Is there anything else you'd like to say? Anything else you'd like [00:33:00] to share?

Cat Chappell (she/her): No, I think I just wanted to thank you for inviting us on.

Jo Reader: Yeah.

Cat Chappell (she/her): It's great. It's just, it's sort of broadening the sort of fativerse, as it were

Jo Reader: Yes.

Cat Chappell (she/her): The excellent film Your Fat Friend by Aubrey Gordon. They encourage people to promote their fat positive endeavours like counselling, the gym, everything. And I think it's the more that we can connect and communicate, because it can be quite isolating. So great to meet you and

Ninna: It is been brilliant to have you both and it's great to know many other people who are doing this work in the UK because what I've seen, there's so much more of this in the US than there is here. And I am meeting some people in the UK. In my podcast I’m speaking for people, from everywhere. However, being based here, it's really nice to have a community. And there are some communities, so I will put some links to communities I'm aware of, as well as your work on the show notes.

Jo Reader: Community is so important in all of this, and [00:34:00] it's what people often talk about on our courses that to be with other people. And like, I felt that today to be with people who get it and they're coming from the same position. You know, don't, you don't need to talk for long to know that, like, oh yeah, we're coming from the same place.

So it's been really nice to meet you and hope we can connect up,

Ninna: Yeah, I hope we can do some other things together. And one of the things that I really want to do, and you've mentioned Aubrey as well, 'cause I think everyone has who's in this movement. But I really want to have a screening of Your Fat Friend,

Jo Reader: Oh

Ninna: which would be fun. We maybe could do one in Bristol and one in Birmingham. We can do two. I already have all the details, but it'd be super fun.

Jo Reader: Yes, it would be well up for that.

Ninna: Okay. I'll be in touch then.

Jo Reader: Great. Oh, it's lovely.

Ninna: It is great meeting you both. Thank you so, so much. Bye.

Jo Reader: Bye bye.

Ninna: That takes us to the end of the episode. I hope you really enjoyed today as much as I did. remember to like and follow the podcast wherever you listen, if you wanna [00:35:00] be in touch, I am at the Fat Psychologist on Instagram, BlueSky and Threads. also on Facebook and you can get in touch also through my website, thefatpsychologist.com. I am actively looking for sponsors, so do get in touch if you'd like to sponsor my work. In the next episode, I will be talking to another therapist and we will be discussing issues around representation or lack of representation thereafter, I hope that you can join us again.

This episode was produced, recorded and edited by Ninna Makrinov.

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