Rising Stars: Meet Ryan Page of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Page.

Hi Ryan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I think I fall into a category of person that learned to read other people before I really be with and inhabit myself. I grew up in the south, arguably the birthplace of passive aggression, so I was a good student to a room’s silences, changes in emotional temperature, of what is being said and what was forbidden to say. Paying attention as a kind of protection. I was gay, bullied, around people but very alone. Very excited to meet the world but kept getting hit by it. I turned so deeply towards my own fantasies, pop music girls, greek myths, and creative practices to basically imagine other ways to be in the world. I think the mix of hyper-focusing on others and keeping the flame of my internal world alive has, through time and a lot of good therapy of my own, converted into a good recipe for helping others navigate this difficult business of life.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, but who actually wants a frictionless life? I’m not convinced that all pain gets re-signified as strength, but I do think my struggles have informed what I listen for and what can I see in others. I don’t think it’s a matter of transcending a history, but just being more capable to stay in the honest reality of it.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a psychodynamic therapist specializing in the treatment of eating disorders. I absolutely love what I do. Much of my work involves helping people understand the private meanings their symptoms have come to hold: what the body has been asked to express, what control has made bearable, what hunger has come to stand in for. I’m interested in the ways we learn to live inside ourselves, and what happens when the body becomes a place to negotiate feelings, relationships, and experiences for which we have not yet found language. I work from the belief that symptoms rarely emerge without a history. What looks like discipline may contain fear. What looks like vanity may be a question of worth. What looks like a preoccupation with food or appearance may be an attempt to manage something far more difficult to name. The work is not simply to change a behavior, but to become curious about the life that made the behavior necessary. I’m proud of the work I’ve done to bring both clinical rigor and a certain kind of humanity to this field. Eating disorders are often discussed in terms of food, weight, and behavior, but I think we miss something essential when we fail to consider the person living inside the illness. I’m proud when someone begins to recognize themselves beyond the demands of their symptoms, when their world becomes larger than the body they have spent years trying to control or evade. I’m also proud of my own recovery. It has given me a particular respect for the distance between knowing something intellectually and being able to live it. Recovery is not a clean departure from an old self. It is an ongoing relationship with uncertainty, with the body, with the possibility of wanting something without first having to earn it.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Oh my gosh. I feel like I came into the world SINGING. I loved dancing, make believe, being in nature. I had big feelings, most of which I learned to experience alone. I’m so glad I got into dance because it was a critical outlet to pour out and brail through some of these feelings in me. Overtime, the wheel turned, and I was really angry, but still expressive. I just had all of this free floating arousal that I didn’t know how to land or who to land it with. I was funny, knew what word should come after the next work, but often felt very alone and very different.

Pricing:

• $250 individual therapy
• $300 couples and family therapy
• Sliding scale available upon inquiry

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ipgtherapy.com
• Instagram: @ryanpagetherapy