Katy has worked hard on herself and her study of change. What
makes transformation happen?
She has been described as a "lightning
rod," being able to assess and treat clients according to
their own needs and strengths, listening deeply to their own
wishes and enlisting the client in the plan for improvement or
personal growth. Katy believes that therapy is a team effort, but
her tools and interventions
can offer effective changes for clients.
Katy herself has recovered from a horrible
eating disorder which consumed her life and literally ate her
up. She weighed 300 pounds and could not stop eating. Now, the
compulsion to overeat is gone completely and without dieting.
She writes, "It's so great to put on a pair of jeans and walk
my dogs. I eat when and how I want. Oh, sure, I still have an
extra ten pounds that come and go, usually depending on my
anxiety level or my love life, but who doesn't?"
Counseling is a process that includes
emphasizing your strengths and natural gifts. Katy does not
believe in shame or judgement, and there are rare places to
work through your issues like this, with this kind of safety.
She also understands deeply the relationship between eating
and relationship needs. Many addicts trade food for love, or
get stuck in attachments to unavailable partners, or are
unable to stop avoiding intimacy.
Katy Byrne has also done an in-depth study
of coupling, Gottman, Hendricks, Snaarch, Scarf, and many
others. She became obsessed with the study of love when her
own relationships seemed harder than they should. As a result,
she has a wealth of information about what helps marriages
better communicate and believes in short term therapy, when
needed, with the "real work" done at home. She's interviewed
experts for radio and television and utilized their brief or
long-term therapy techniques and approaches to help people
talk to each other and come through the tunnel to the other
end, into the light of more fun and closeness.
Need coaching? Katy can give you
short or long term coaching for any reason including
coaching for singles. She can give men feedback in a
single session. Sometimes you need to learn to listen better,
sometimes it's a haircut or fashion consultation, at other
moments, a sense of humor. Katy can offer "object relations,"
a clinical term which refers to the way we relate to others.
Both women and men will find immediate change occurring in all
of their relationships, in how others respond to them - if you
are open for feedback.
Katy Byrne, MA, MFT,
licensed family therapist, has been in private practice for
over 20 years. Her compulsive eating led her to diets, twelve
step programs, multiple therapies and the agony of trying to
vomit, which led to her hairball book and finally to recovery.
The Courage To Speak Up:
Getting your Hairballs Out was her
way out. As Katy learned not to stuff emotions and needs, she
evolved into a size 10. She now walks down the street in
jeans, which was a lifelong dream. She eats whatever she
wants, when she wants. The disorder left after a breakthrough
in therapy. She lives and works in Sonoma, CA.
It is my
conviction that conversation can change the world.
- Katy Byrne
Contact Katy at:
katybyrne@aol.com 
