If you're feeling pressure to look a certain way, if you're unhappy with your weight or waist size or if you're just generally feeling unhappy with the way you look, The Healing Place can help.

The Healing Place is a new support group on campus that began on January 9. The weekly meetings take place on Mondays from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in F2010-5. It's an open group and participation is voluntary — no registration is required. Participants are not required to come every week; they just show up when they want to talk.

Everything said in the group is entirely confidential. "It's a safe place where people can share things without worry of being caught in the hallways or centred out," explained Jerilyn Hurwitz, a Registered Social Worker with Fanshawe's Counselling and Accessibility Services and Founder of The Healing Place.

Hurwitz said she wants this new group to be inclusive. "I didn't want to focus just on people who have eating disorders," she said. "It's for anyone whose feeling like they're struggling with what they see in the mirror, or feel like their happiness is based on the number on the scale or the size of their pants, that type of thing."

"I've always been actively involved in eating disorder awareness (and body image issues)," she continued. "I feel very strongly about the media and the impact that it has on young people in terms of pressures that they face."

For more information about The Healing Place, contact Hurwitz at jhurwitz@fanshawec.ca or by phone at 519- 452-4430 ext. 3995.