Holding On: The Need for and the Feeling of Control in Eating Disorders

Professional Development for the Mental Health Community

“Holding On: The Need for and the Feeling of Control”

Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, ABPP, FIPA, CEDS-C

Friday, February 27, 2026

6:30PM – 8:30PM (EST)

PPSC

Live Webinar on Zoom

$60 Regular Admission and $40 Student

*This talk provides 2 hours of continuing education credits for LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMHCs, LCATs, LMFTs, and licensed psychologists.

This talk theorizes the need for control, an imperative that arises in response to anxiety about emotional vulnerability. This leads to the deployment of defensive strategies to regulate what experiences enter awareness and how they are perceived in an effort to enhance the subjective feeling of control. The feeling of control, distinct from the objective capacity for control, is characterized by five interrelated experiences: (1) predictability, (2) agency in relation to internal states, (3) narrative coherence, (4) certain forms of bodily experience, and (5) distance from intolerable experiences. These ideas are developed through a literature review, which highlights the ways that a wide range of theorists speak to these ideas, followed by a clinical case of a patient in recovery from an eating disorder. Drawing on psychoanalytic epistemology, recent developments in neuroscience, and early Buddhist philosophy, Dr. Wooldridge concludes with a reflection on the possibility that the need for control may be rooted in the deeper structures of the mind, becoming organized in various ways throughout development.

Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, ABPP, FIPA, CEDS-C is Chair in the Department of Psychology at Golden Gate University as well as a psychoanalyst and board-certified, licensed psychologist. His books include, Understanding Anorexia Nervosa in Males, Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak (Relational Perspectives Book Series), Eating Disorders (New Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis), and the co-edited volume, Advancing Psychotherapy for the Next Generation: Rehumanizing Mental Health Policy and Practice. He has also written a novel about the process of psychotherapy, Ghosts of the Unremembered Past, additionally released as an audiobook with Audible. His newest book, Parenting in Eating Disorder Recovery: Attunement, Reflection, and the Art of Staying Present, will be released by Guilford in 2026. He is a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute for Northern California and a Training Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. He is on the Scientific Advisory Council of the National Eating Disorders Association, Faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC), the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP), the William Alanson White Institute’s Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addictions program, and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and has a private practice in Berkeley, CA and via tele-health.

Learning Objectives

After attending this presentation, participants will be able to:

• differentiate between the feeling of control and the objective capacity for control within psychoanalytic and phenomenological frameworks.
• identify and describe the five experiential dimensions that contribute to the subjective feeling of control: predictability, agency in relation to internal states, narrative coherence, bodily experience, and distance from intolerable affect.
• explain how the need for control functions as a defensive response to emotional vulnerability and anxiety.

Agenda

6:30 – 7:00: Differentiate between the feeling of control and the objective capacity for it. (LO#1)

7:00 – 7:30: Identify and describe five experiential conditions that contribute to the feeling of control. (LO#2)

7:30 – 8:00: Discuss how the need for control functions as a defensive response to anxiety and emotional vulnerability. (LO#3)

8:00 – 8:30: Q & A.

This event will be recorded. Those unable to attend live may register as usual and contact the Annex Program Manager at annex-ops@ppsc.org to request access. The recording will be available for two (2) weeks following the event.

You may still earn CE credit by watching the recording, provided that:

• The program is offered by an NYSED-approved provider for your specific license type, and;
• The recording is classified as a self-study course (i.e., there is no live interaction).

Under NYSED regulations, licensees may complete up to 12 hours of their required continuing education per registration period through self-study activities. The remaining hours must be obtained through live, interactive learning.

To be eligible to receive Continuing Education (CE) credits, participants must complete the post-event evaluation within this two-week period. Upon completion of the recording and required post-event evaluation, a CE certificate will be issued for qualifying participants.

*For a refund to a PPSC Annex event, we must receive a cancellation notice 24 hours prior to the event. Please contact annex-ops@ppsc.org if you want to cancel within this timeframe or if you have any other questions or concerns.

*Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0040, licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0166, licensed creative arts therapists #CAT-0083, and licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0119. We are recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0054 and by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0118. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center maintains responsibility for its programs and its content.

*PPSC does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, sexual preference, gender, gender identity, marital status, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its admissions and educational policies.