For The Brides of Ed: Art Exhibit Featuring Pioneering New Approach To Treating Eating Disorders

NEW YORK - April 5, 2013 - PRLog -- New York City, March 1, 2013  The women who work with Pittsburgh-based art psychotherapist Lauren Lazar Stern, MA, ATR-BC, LPC and NYC-based prescriptive artist Nancy Gershman all suffer from a range of eating disorders which numb them from feeling hurt, conflicted or anything at all. Only one thing takes precedence over boyfriends, husbands, jobs, friends, hobbies and studies and that is their primary relationship with “Ed" (their eating disorder).

In the exhibit "Brides of Ed*: An Integrated Approach," Stern and Gershman introduce their pioneering approach for helping patients divorce the eating disorder part of themselves and reclaim what they loved before "Ed". On display are Stern’s art therapy exercises, followed by tools used during the visual, auditory and tactile processing of EMDR, concluding with prescriptive photomontages co-created with Stern's patients by Gershman. For each "Healing Dreamscape," Gershman combs for the patient's wished-for reality, creating visualizations of a past or a future with happier outcomes. "The sensory imagery, symbols, metaphors and narrative elements," says Gershman, "trigger the brain to retrieve a memory, update it and thus, transform it." These tangible objects of hope act as surrogate reinforcers in Stern’s absence and a reminder that there is life after ED.

Nancy Gershman (http://www.artforyoursake.com) is a New York-based digital artist specializing in prescriptive photomontage to counter loss and regrets. Her work has been published in Annals of American Psychotherapy and Robert Neimeyer's “Techniques of Grief Therapy" as has been shown at The Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago.

Lauren Lazar Stern, MA, ATR-BC, LPC (http://www.laurenlazarstern.com) is a Pittsburgh-based art psychotherapist and EMDR therapist working with girls and women suffering from eating disorders and body image disturbance. She is author of The Slender Trap: A Food and Body Workbook.

Contact: Nancy Gershman, nancy@artforyoursake.com; (773) 255-4677 EST

MSB Gallery, NYU Langone Medical Center, 550 First Avenue
March 18- April 12, 2013 (Free and open to the public)
Opening reception: March 21, 2013, 5:00-7:00pm