RED-S support that sees more than the athlete.
I offer online counselling for athletes navigating RED-S, eating disorders, body image, perfectionism, identity and the pressure that can come with sport. The focus is not simply on getting you back to performing. It is on understanding the person underneath the performance too.
Sport can become so focused on performance that the person gets lost.
Athletes are often surrounded by people thinking about training, results, recovery and performance. All of that matters, but it does not automatically create space for what is happening psychologically underneath it.
RED-S, eating difficulties and body image concerns can sit alongside questions about identity, perfectionism, control, pressure and what it means when your body is not doing what you want or need it to do.
Counselling gives us room to look at those things without treating you only as an athlete who needs to get back on track.
When sport, food and identity start to overlap.
RED-S can sit within a much bigger picture. These are some of the areas that may form part of counselling, depending on what is happening for you.
Food + fuelling
Anxiety, rules, guilt or difficulty around eating and fuelling within a culture where food can easily become tied to training and performance.
Body image
Pressure around weight, shape, appearance or what an athlete in your sport is expected to look like.
Performance + perfectionism
When self-worth becomes closely connected to results, training, discipline, productivity or never feeling that enough is enough.
Identity + uncertainty
What happens when injury, reduced training, recovery or changing circumstances disrupt the version of yourself that has been built around sport.
Counselling is one part of the picture.
RED-S can involve physical, nutritional and psychological factors. My role is specifically the counselling and psychological side of that picture, supporting the thoughts, emotions, relationships and identity issues that may sit alongside what is happening physically.
We can explore your relationship with food, exercise, body image and control.
We can look at performance pressure, perfectionism, identity and fear around reducing training or changing routines.
Where useful, I am happy to work alongside dietitians, nutritionists and other professionals involved in your care, with your consent.
The focus stays on you as a whole person rather than reducing the work to performance outcomes.
I am not a dietitian or nutritionist and I do not provide nutritional assessment, meal plans or dietary treatment for RED-S. My work focuses on the psychological side, and I am happy to collaborate alongside dietitians, nutritionists and other relevant professionals where appropriate.
I am not a sports psychologist. The work is different.
Sports psychology is often focused on performance. My work is counselling. That means we can look at the person as a whole, including things that may have very little to do with improving performance but still have a huge effect on how life and sport feel.
Not every conversation about low energy availability looks the same.
For some athletes there may also be an eating disorder, disordered eating or significant anxiety around food and body image. For others, the picture may be different. The work needs to make room for the individual rather than assuming one explanation fits everyone.
Explore Eating Disorder Therapy →Things we may explore...
- Food rules, guilt and anxiety around fuelling.
- Fear of weight or body changes.
- Compulsive or rigid relationships with exercise.
- Identity, control, perfectionism and pressure within sport.
Support that can understand sport without making everything about sport.
Integrative
I draw mainly from person-centred and psychodynamic approaches rather than placing every athlete into the same therapeutic model.
Collaborative
You set the pace and we decide together what is useful to explore.
Direct when useful
I can be honest and challenging when that helps, rather than simply validating patterns that may be keeping you stuck.
Flexible around sport
Sessions take place online via Zoom and I try to work flexibly around training, racing, competitions and changing schedules.
I am in the endurance world too.
I am an active runner training and racing over ultra distances. That does not mean my experience is the same as yours, but it does mean I understand the language and culture of training, racing, structure, ambition and performance from the inside rather than only from a textbook.
It also means you do not have to spend half the session explaining why sport matters so much before we can talk about what is happening underneath it.
Counselling experience with specialist eating disorder and sport understanding.
I am an integrative therapist with a Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling Studies from the University of Edinburgh. My additional training includes eating disorders, mental health and adverse childhood experiences, alongside lived experience within endurance sport.
More about Sara + training →You can contact me before you have everything worked out.
Tell me a little about what is happening and I can let you know whether my approach may be suitable.