Joanna Poppink

Today I am a healthy, active professional woman living in Los Angeles.

My psychotherapy private practice began in 1980.

Around 1984 I started specializing in treating people with eating disorders. I continue to specialize in this work and find it moving, satisfying and a privilege.

Living with an eating disorder is not for the faint of heart. It requires strength, creativity, determination and focus.

When those qualities are released from the eating disordered way of life, people bloom in glorious
ways. I never cease to be joyous and amazed at how people in recovery transform their lives.

My environment is important to me. My home is ever changing as I adapt it to the changing needs of my family and my own interests. Small children seem to require environmental changes every three months, and my writing pushes me to continually streamline my work space. My office is in a garden setting and the waiting room is the garden itself. In fact, I consider the garden my co-therapist. I write in the garden when I can. When I can't I write near windows so the garden is around me.

My studies are guided by a central question.
What actually happens in psychotherapy that really helps a person with an eating disorder recover?

In this blog I invite you to join me in talking freely about how various answers develop to that ongoing question.

Together we can raise issues about what opposes and what supports recovery as we share opinions, feelings and experiences.

More about me: I have a great dog named Winston - a rescue who I think is a combo of Jack Russell terrier and Corgi. He’s 27 pounds of shaggy delight with big brown eyes, a curled up tail and a great passion for tag, fetch and “keep away.”

I have two cats - brothers - also rescues - who are 3/4 Siamese and big (about 14 pounds each). Bodhi is a sleek and elusive blue-eyed panther who rarely socializes except with me yet shows remarkable patience with small children when he deigns to be visible. His brother, Jack, is a relationship minded green eyed friendly who likes to stay close and especially enjoys blocking my view of the computer monitor.

I love to travel. My last trip was to Ireland, and I'm left feeling that I want to keep going back. I love my friends and my family. I'm deeply concerned and interested in correcting the global warming situation and am devoted to becoming as green as I can be. I love theater, books, art, music and dynamic conversations that inspire everyone involved.

What's best for me is being close to and part of active, healthy creativity with friends, with patients, with family and maybe - with you. I hope so.

My business card reads:

Eating Disorder Recovery Specialist
Private Practice Psychotherapist
www.poppink.com

Joanna Poppink, LMFT CA 15563 & OR T0565
Licensed marriage and family therapist
Joanna@poppink.com

10573 West Pico Blvd. #20
Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310) 474-4165

My Professional Affiliations are:

Current

Academy for Eating Disorders (AED)
http://www.acadeatdis.org

American Anorexia and Bulimia Association (AABA)
http://www.aabainc.org.

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT)
http://www.aamft.org

California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)
http://www.camft.org

International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP)
http://www.iaedp.com/

National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA)
www.nationaleatingdisorders.org

National Youth Leadership Forum (NYLF)
http://www.nylf.org/

Past

International Society for the Study of Dissociation
http://www.issd.org

International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
http://www.istss.org

Sidran Foundation
http://www.sidran.org

Professional Licenses:

MFT license granted by State of California in 1980.

MFT license granted by State of Oregon in 2007.