The Role of Empathy, Active Listening in Trauma-Informed Nutrition Counseling
In this podcast, Lisa Jones, MA, RDN, LDN, FAND, interviews Julie Feldman, MPH, RDN, about optimal nutrition counseling strategies in patients with a history of trauma, including tips for active listening. This is episode four of a four-part series on trauma-informed nutrition counseling. This is episode four of a four-part series on trauma-informed nutrition counseling.
Listen to part three of this four-part series here.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Host: Hello and welcome to Nutrition411: The Podcast, a special podcast series led by registered dietitian and nutritionist, Lisa Jones. The views of the speakers are their own and do not reflect the views of their respective institutions or Consultant360.
Lisa Jones: Hello and welcome to Nutrition411: The Podcast where we communicate the information that you need to know now about the science, psychology, and strategies behind the practice of dietetics.
Today's podcast is part of a series of short episodes featuring Q&A with Julie Feldman. Julie Feldman is a registered dietitian nutritionist, nationally recognized nutrition expert, consultant, counselor, speaker, spokesperson, author, and owner and founder of Thrive Nutrition and Wellness, LLC, specializing in trauma and nutrition counseling for teens and adults. Julie is from West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Hi, Julie, and welcome.
Julie Feldman: Hi, Lisa. Thanks for having me.
LJ: In our most recent episode, we talked about exploring key topics in dietetics. Julie, if you had to sum up that conversation in one or two sentences, what would you say would be the key takeaways from that conversation?
JF: I think the key takeaway is that I want the emerging topic in dietetics to be understanding the psychological pieces of how we create nutrition change for our patients and understanding the role that trauma plays in that process.
LJ: That was well extremely well said. Thank you, Julie. All right. Let's talk about practical insights today.
What is the role of empathy and active listening in implementing nutrition strategies for trauma survivors?
JF: Well, obviously empathy and active listening are critical in my mind for delivering any type of care. I feel like this is a skill that I have evolved in since I have been working for a long time.
I think it's something that's really challenging if you're new to the field of nutrition because it can be nerve-wracking to walk into a session or to start meeting with a patient or a client. Someone might say “Oh my God, am I going to know what to say?” Or “I don't know what to say.” I remember when I first started, I felt like I had to have an agenda. I had to have 27 different handouts printed for each session.
I thought “I'm going to spend five minutes doing this.” With experience, I realized (1) this meeting is not about me and (2) my agenda could look really different from what the client's hopes are and what their agenda is when they're coming in. Even if I know them really well. Even if this is our fourth session or whatnot, we don't know what goes on in people's lives. And so, I think the role of active listening– and I know I alluded to this in another episode we had– but whatever the client is talking about is interesting. It can give you insight into who they are and what they're all about. I can tell you this morning, I've had three clients already today. If I had to give a percentage to how much time I spent actually talking about nutrition, I would guess on average, I probably spent maybe 40 % of those three hours talking about actual food, grocery shopping, meal prepping, and stuff like that. And the other time was spent– my first client, we talked a lot about his volunteer work. He spent a day in our capital not too long ago doing a ton of work for the American Cancer Society. I spent time talking about a really stressful situation at one of my client’s jobs. And the reason why this is important is because if those issues do not get talked about, if those people do not get validated for the things that are going well if they don't feel heard about the things that are really challenging, you know what they're going to do? They're going to use food to fill those spaces.
They’re going to use food to make them feel better, to congratulate themselves, to celebrate, to soothe all of those things. So, if I can help somebody process something and help them to create space for whatever it is that they're experiencing, the likelihood that they're going to then use food in the same ways is so dramatically different.
LJ: You actually just answered the second part of the question, which is how do these skills impact counseling outcomes? Because you said they use foods to fill those spaces. So, thank you for answering the question I didn't ask yet already.
JF: Think about what hunger is. Hunger is an emptiness. And we pretty much get trained at a really, really, really, really, really, young that we fill those voids with food. It's just the first coping skill that we have access to.
But we can be hungry for someone to tell us that they're proud of us. We can be hungry for a nap. We can be hungry for intimacy. We can be hungry for validation on a lot of different levels. Empathy, I think a lot of times we're hungry for empathy.
In fact, I started doing something with my own teenagers. I have two daughters in college and when they text me, I'll ask “Vent or help?” Like, are you just venting to me, or do you want my input? Because sometimes I'll write back and they'll be like, you don't understand, you know, that's not helpful. So now, I just I just ask right out of the gate “What do you need from me in this moment? I can be here just for you to vent to. Obviously, I'm a safe person for that.”
Or, and I did this last night with one of my kids, “Vent or help?” “Help.” Okay, and you know what? We ordered an actual paper planner for her last night on Amazon and before I got on our call today, it already arrived there. So, that was helpful, but I needed to listen to her.
I needed to understand what she needed. And I think we get to do that in our client interactions too.
LJ: Oh, I love that. What a great note to end on. I'm going to write that “Vent or help” and put it behind my computer so I’ll see it.
That is so perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing all your insights with us today, Julie, and for being on the show.
We'll put all the resources in in the show notes. Thank you for listening and please tune in again and share your comments and feedback on our sites. Have a great day and enjoy a healthier lifestyle with The 411 in mind. Thanks so much.
Host: For more nutrition content, visit consultant360.com.