Alena Borgatti, PhD

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Alena Borgatti is a postdoctoral fellow at EBTCS who specializes in providing evidence-based treatment to those with eating disorders.  She has provided treatment for eating disorders at all levels of care and uses Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) approaches to promote health and recovery. Dr. Borgatti also helps promote wellbeing through her work with conditions that may interact with eating behaviors and body image, including Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes, digestive diseases, cancer, and chronic pain. She is especially passionate about reducing biases and barriers to promote equity in eating disorder treatment and recovery, especially for LGBTQIA+ individuals and individuals in larger bodies. In her clinical work, she focuses on validating all people’s inherent worth and resilience to circumstances outside their control, while simultaneously empowering her clients to grow and adapt to build a life worth living.

Dr. Borgatti received her Ph.D. in Medical-Clinical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which provides specialized training in understanding how medical and mental health concerns impact each other.  She completed her predoctoral internship at Denver Health Medical Center where she worked at the Acute Center for Eating Disorders, an intensive care unit for individuals hospitalized due to severe medical complications related to disordered eating. Afterwards, she received postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado’s Barbara Davis Diabetes Center before joining the postdoctoral program at the Evidence Based Treatment Center of Seattle.

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Borgatti has a strong research background in weight discrimination, racial discrimination, and LGBTQIA+ discrimination as they relate to disordered eating. She is especially interested in understanding the social processes that impact when and how stigma occurs and is experienced, and how this impacts different treatment outcomes.