Professional Bio

Katherine Dittmann, MA, MS, RD, is a registered dietitian/ nutrition therapist specializing in eating disorders, embodied self-care, and nutrition for mental health and substance use disorders. She uses a food-positive, compassion-centered, trauma-informed approach to help people connect with their bodies and eat with more ease.

Because self-care is an integral part of any treatment plan, her focus is on nutrition as self-care, incorporating mind-body attunement, committed action, and the cultivation of an attitude of care and kindness. In short, her job is to make eating easier.

Katherine has nearly 20 years of experience and expertise with eating disorders across all levels of care, from adolescents to older adults. She believes that each person with a health issue presents uniquely and must be seen as a person struggling first, not just a diagnosis. Many of her clients have additional struggles, such as anxiety, unresolved trauma, and depression. Katherine is committed to collaborating with the team to understand how all parts influence each other and affect an individual’s ability to feed themselves. Her work is collaborative, inclusive, weight-neutral, non-diet, and trauma-informed with the intention of creating safety as she builds trust and confidence with her clients.

Experience

Katherine is skilled at working with most eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, ARFID) and is particularly adept at working with anorexia nervosa. She is able to work with more complex cases involving additional medical or mental health challenges requiring nutrition interventions. In all cases, she helps her clients create structure with their eating routine in a way that meets them where they are while also supporting their personal health goals. She uses a food-first approach, but understands that supplementation may sometimes be necessary. Sessions are informed by CBT, DBT, ACT, parts work, somatic education, Socratic method, mindful inquiry, and Motivational Interviewing. In less severe cases of eating difficulties, such as chronic dieting, Katherine employs the Intuitive Eating model and uses mindful eating strategies.

Expertise

Beyond nutrition, Katherine has special training in mind-body therapeutics, mindful self-compassion, and practical philosophy.  She is a Certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher and a member of APPA, The American Philosophical Practitioner’s Association. Katherine is the consulting dietitian for the Mind Therapy Clinic in Corte Madera where she works with the team to ensure good nutrition for those with a variety of mental health and substance use struggles. Early on in her career, she completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training and was trained in Mindfulness Yoga Therapy for Eating Disorders. See her complete scope of practice here.

Education

Katherine is a proud product of the California public education system. Her degrees include a BA in French Linguistics from UC Santa Barbara, an MS in Nutritional Science from San Jose State, and an MA in Philosophy from San Francisco State. She completed her nutrition master’s thesis by investigating eating attitudes, spiritual beliefs, and body awareness in women who practice yoga (Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 2009). Her philosophy master’s thesis, Self-Compassion as an Ethical Attitude in Foucault’s Care of the Self (2021), proposes that when we truly care and treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, we freely engage in a kind of self-cultivation that leads to self-knowledge, wisdom and ethical interactions with the world.

Once upon a time, she was a professional restaurant chef, a food writer, and a yoga teacher. Katherine’s favorite things are traveling, cooking, dining, swimming, snorkeling, dancing, music, and her cat, Baxter. She was born and raised in Marin County and lives in San Francisco.