CALM Counseling Austin
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08/04/2026
Very thin celebrity bodies are back in the headlines. The conversation often becomes: Should we comment? Or should we refrain?
Our newest essay, “The Commodification of Celebrity Bodies” explores why these conversations feel so emotionally charged—and what they reveal about our culture. In an age where we’re increasingly expected to become brands, our bodies have become public projects, shaped by surveillance, performance, and the search for belonging.
This isn’t an essay about one celebrity. It’s about the culture we all inhabit.
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Link in bio.
07/31/2026
What if we’ve mistaken a medication for a public health strategy?
GLP-1s may improve health and reduce suffering for many people. But medication alone can’t fix the conditions that make health so difficult to achieve.
If we ignore loneliness, poverty, trauma, food environments, and disappearing community spaces, we’re treating symptoms while leaving the root causes untouched.
This isn’t an argument against GLP-1s. It’s an argument for remembering that health is about more than biology. It’s also about belonging.
We’re so proud of our co-founder, Vanessa Scaringi, PhD, for joining NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Brittany Luse to discuss The Heavy Weight of Diet Culture.
As “thin is in” once again, many of us are noticing changes in the bodies around us—and wondering how to talk about them with compassion rather than judgment. In this thoughtful conversation, Vanessa shares how we can express concern without policing bodies, making assumptions, or pointing fingers.
These conversations are at the heart of the work we do every day. Rather than focusing on bodies, we can learn to focus on the relationships, emotions, and attachment needs that often exist beneath our struggles with food and appearance.
These same themes are explored more deeply in our upcoming book, “Hungry for Connection: Heal Your Relationship with Food & People in an Insecurely Attached World”. We believe healing doesn’t come from chasing body ideals, but rather from building secure relationships with ourselves, with others, and with food.
A huge thank you to Brittany Luse , Angelina Chapin , and the NPR team for creating space for such a thoughtful and timely conversation. Also, shout out to Kaye Publicity 🙌
🎧 Give the episode a listen, link in bio! And if these ideas resonate with you, we hope you’ll also check out “Hungry for Connection” when it releases this fall.
When Netflix is ready to interview us about living through the GLP-1 era and writing a book about reconnecting with our deeper hunger—we’ll be ready. 🎬
Because while the conversation has centered on how to quiet hunger, we’ve been asking a different question:
What are we really hungry for?
While writing “Hungry for Connection”, we kept coming back to the idea that not every hunger is for food. Sometimes what we’re longing for is safety, belonging, rest, purpose, or genuine connection.
This book isn’t about arguing against medication. It’s about exploring the forms of hunger that remain—even when food becomes quieter.
Because hunger isn’t a problem to eliminate.
It’s an invitation to understand ourselves and our bodies more deeply.
Are we in a sort of honeymoon period with GLP-1 medications? How does weight loss impact overall mental health over time?
For many people, weight loss does change things. Weight stigma is real, and being treated differently can bring real relief.
But as an eating disorder therapist, I’ve also seen that even when the body changes, the deeper questions often remain:
Am I enough?
Will I be loved?
Do I truly belong?
Our deepest hunger is rarely just about food or even weight.
Often, it can be about seeking authentic connection.
GLP-1 medications can quiet hunger and reduce some of the burden of weight stigma, but they can’t heal attachment wounds or create secure attachments.
Building strong and secure relationships is key to overcoming disordered behavior with food and the deeper need for connection.
Belonging
07/14/2026
We’re so excited to partner with Empowered Treatment Center for this upcoming CEU!
Join us for Hungry for Connection: Attachment, Disordered Eating, and the Search for Belonging in a Digital World as we explore how our increasingly disconnected, digitally mediated world shapes our relationships with food, our bodies, and one another.
Together, we’ll examine how social media, algorithmic influence, loneliness, disconnection, weight stigma, and the medicalization of eating and body size intersect with our attachment needs and why these forces matter in the treatment of disordered eating.
🗓 Friday, July 24
🕛 12:00–2:00 PM
📍 Empowered Treatment Center
🥪 Lunch provided
DisorderedEating WeightStigma SocialMedia Loneliness DigitalWellbeing AustinTherapists
07/08/2026
The conversation around GLP-1s has become increasingly polarized.
In our latest Hungry for Connection Substack article, we wonder whether or not we’re asking the wrong question.
Rather than debating whether these medications are “good” or “bad,” what if we became more curious about how they interact with our nervous system’s capacity for regulation? And why that experience might differ from person to person.
We explore GLP-1s through the lens of attachment theory and consider whether different attachment patterns might help explain why these medications can feel profoundly regulating for some people while leaving others feeling emotionally disconnected.
We’d love to hear your thoughts.
🔗 Link in bio.
07/01/2026
We’ve spent years talking about the attention economy—how companies compete for our clicks, focus, and time.
But something even deeper is happening.
Increasingly, the products, platforms, and institutions around us aren’t just competing for our attention. They’re shaping where we turn for comfort, certainty, connection, and belonging.
Welcome to the Attachment Economy.
And as AI and other industries become more embedded in our daily lives, the competition for our trust, loyalty, and emotional reliance will only grow.
The question is: who, and what, is becoming our source of security?
Full essay is on our Substack.
06/28/2026
Move over, attention economy. Here comes the attachment economy.
It seems the next battle, after scrambling for our attention, is for our sense of belonging.
Kathryn’s latest Substack explores how Big Food, wellness culture, AI, and emerging technologies are increasingly competing not just for our attention, but for our trust, comfort, and connection.
We’d love to hear what you think. Link in bio.
Have you heard of the “attachment economy”?
The term, coined by the Center for Humane Technology, describes a shift from companies competing for our attention to competing for our attachment.
Most people talk about this in the context of AI companions and chatbots.
But I think it shows up in diet and wellness culture, too.
Because many wellness brands aren’t just selling products—they’re selling belonging, identity, community, and the promise of feeling safe, supported, and okay.
As humans, we’re wired for connection.
The question is: what happens when our need for connection becomes something that can be monetized?
Have you heard of the attachment economy??
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