A little over six years ago, I wrote a blog entry in which I attempted to rebut the notion that discussing topics other than food in our sessions somehow qualifies as psychology. In reference to intuitive eating, I wrote, “What does it say about how disconnected our culture teaches us to be from our internal signals regarding eating that an approach that encourages us to pay attention to said signals triggers connotations of therapy?”
After reading the blog, a friend of mine – a clinical psychologist himself – offered something along the lines of, “Maybe the reason your work is effective is because you include some psychology.” No, I bristled. Staying within my scope of practice is important to me, and certainly anything that qualifies as psychology is beyond what a dietitian can offer, I reasoned.
Given that, I have occasionally second-guessed myself when conversations with patients have strayed into more distant orbits around food. On one hand, I have tended to listen to my instinct to prioritize what my patients want to discuss and to follow the natural flow of conversation so long as what we are talking about ultimately relates to their eating. On the other hand, when conversations become less about nutrition and more about things like body image, weight stigma, or even happenings in someone’s life that are tangential to their eating, I have worried that perhaps I have inadvertently crossed the line from where a dietitian’s work ends and that of a therapist begins.
Then along came a session at the 2021 Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association (MEDA) conference that alleviated my worry and helped me to see the matter in a different light. In their talk, entitled “Staying in Your Lane – Until You Can’t: Balancing Scope of Practice and Competent Client Care,” Anna Lutz and Sandra Wartski, a dietitian and psychologist, respectively, delved into the issue of professional bounds.
One of the most validating concepts that I took away from their talk is that there is no crisp line separating the work of the two professions, but rather there is an overlap, a gradient that bleeds from one realm of expertise into the other. In other words, some topics, such as weight stigma, are appropriate for discussion with both a dietitian and therapist, and each practitioner can bring different perspectives that hopefully complement one another.
Furthermore, scope of practice is amorphous, fluid, and depends on context, such as an individual patient’s needs at a specific moment in time and the practitioner’s own comfort level. Sometimes a patient is unable to address the work at hand, and simply having a human connection is more constructive. Anna gave an example of a time when a patient was too preoccupied with other matters to discuss food, something I have experienced with patients of mine on occasion, so they spent the entirety of their appointment talking without ever discussing the patient’s eating.
Having said all that, scopes of practice can only stretch so far. If a patient raises an issue that is beyond my ability to expertly handle, such as a disclosure of trauma that they are hoping we can process together, I am responsible for making my limitations known. Similarly, a good therapist knows better than to delve into the specifics of nutrition. Part of the reason why collaboration between treatment team members is so important is because we can let each other know when something comes up that is better handled by the other practitioner.
For me, their talk validated my intuition and reassured me that the way I approach my work is well within my professional bounds. For our patients who are reading this, I hope hearing about their session resolves any lingering questions you may carry about possibly having overshared and similarly serves as encouragement to remain open going forward.