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Counseling and Motivating Clients
Books:
Motivational Interviewing in Nutrition and Fitness: This was the first book I read when starting my private practice. I didn’t feel confident in my counseling skills, and this was recommended in several dietitian groups on Facebook. I’ve fine-tuned my approach throughout the years, but this was definitely my foundation.
Counselling Skills for Dietitians: This book comes highly recommended in various Facebook groups as well. Full Disclosure: It is next on my “counseling skills” TBR pile, so I can’t vouch for it myself. However, it has excellent reviews and appears to delve quite a bit further than motivational interviewing in counseling theories and approaches
Nutrition Counseling and Education Skills: A Practical Guide, 8th Ed.: This is the book we used in school, and it provides a lot of exercises and scenarios to help you with person-centered education and behavioral change techniques. Updates in 2023 include further discussion on cultural competence, more culturally and gender-diverse examples, and new topics such as social media and telehealth. AND members get a discount.
Websites and Courses:
Dietitian Counselling Skills: Founded by Stephanie Notaras, an Australian dietitian with a master’s in social health and counseling. I have not taken her program, but I have attended various lectures given by her, and she is a fantastic resource of actionable education.
Body Image with Bri: Again, I haven’t taken her courses, but I follow her everywhere (podcast, social, email, etc), and she’s pretty amazing. I took a short course with her protege, Amanda Mittman, which was also excellent. I don’t see that Amanda has any offerings currently, though.
Center for Body Trust: My gold standard, big-ticket goal for body image and counseling training. Again, I get immense value from their email newsletter. They also have a book, Reclaiming Body Trust, available along with a supporting workbook.
Nutritional Psychiatry
Books
Brain Changer: The Good Mental Health Diet: Written by Felice Jacka, PhD, lead author of the SMILES trial. Also check out: There’s a Zoo in My Poo! for kids. Both are written for the lay public.
Eat To Beat Depression and Anxiety: Written by Drew Ramsey, MD. This book has a very easy-to-read format, making it great for a reader who wants only the basics or who struggles to read information written in a more traditional format.
It includes a 6-week plan, which I usually tell clients to get recipes and ideas for, but do not try to follow exactly. That’s what I’m for!
Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health: A Complete Guide to the Food-Mood Connection: Written by Leslie Korn, PhD. This is a reference book. It is the first resource I bought, and I still refer to it when building out presentations, or need info without the distractions a Google or PubMed search can cause.
Nutritional Treatments to Improve Mental Health Disorders: Written by Anne Procyk, ND. This book has some good research. However, I found some recommendations unrealistic in practice, and others were oversimplified or exaggerated. I like it for finding topics to research or learn more about, but don’t use it as a definitive resource.
Websites and Courses
PubMed: A Large search engine dedicated to published scientific literature
Google Scholar: Similar to PubMed
Sci-Hub: provides free, full access to articles. Useful when only the abstract is readily attainable. You will need the DOI number to search adequately.
University Libraries: If you can access your University’s Library, take advantage of it! I don’t have access to mine anymore. When I was using it frequently, I found PubMed to be a better search engine, so keep that in mind.