Anorexia Nervosa Therapy

Anorexia often functions like a false sense of safety. Restriction can temporarily quiet anxiety, create a feeling of control, superiority, or offer relief from intense emotions, trauma responses, or identity pain. Over time, it narrows your world: rules take over, eating becomes a threat, and self worth can start to hinge on control, numbers, and perceived “success.” Many people also experience compulsive exercise, perfectionism, people pleasing, and a constant internal debate about whether they are “sick enough.” Anorexia and other restrictive eating disorders can occur across all body sizes, and medical risk can be present regardless of appearance.

Therapy focuses on understanding the role anorexia has played in your life while building a path that does not require extreme rigidity or self punishment. We work on nervous system regulation, fear tolerance, and gradually loosening rigid rules in a way that supports real life, not just “in session insight.” When helpful, treatment includes parts work to reduce internal warfare, skills for distress tolerance, values based decision making, and trauma processing at a pace that supports stability. If exercise is part of the picture, we address the compulsion and the meaning behind it, not just the behavior.

Orthorexia Therapy

Orthorexia can look like health from the outside, but feel like anxiety and obsession on the inside. Food becomes moralized. Rules multiply. Flexibility disappears. Social life shrinks because eating “wrong” feels intolerable. Many people feel trapped between fear of harm and fear of losing control, especially in a culture that rewards discipline and punishes bodies. Orthorexia can also overlap with obsessive traits, perfectionism, and trauma based hypervigilance.

Therapy helps you move from unbreakable rules to self-trust. We will work on reducing fear-based decision making, increasing flexibility with food, and building tolerance for uncertainty so your nervous system does not treat normal eating as danger. Treatment may include exposure-based support with a gentle pace and with your full collaboration, skills for intrusive thoughts, and values-based work that reconnects you to what matters more than “getting it right.” We also name the cultural noise that fuels orthorexia, because you cannot individualize a problem that is constantly reinforced.

Bulimia Nervosa Therapy

Bulimia often feels like living inside an urgent loop. Bingeing can bring temporary relief or numbness. Purging or compensatory behaviors can feel like a reset, a way to erase fear, guilt, or panic and can even feel euphoric. But the cycle quickly becomes exhausting and isolating, and it can take a serious toll on the body and the nervous system. Many people describe feeling trapped between shame, urgency, and a sense of being out of control, even when they are functioning well on the outside.

Therapy targets the cycle on multiple levels. We will work on stabilizing eating patterns and reducing the deprivation and scarcity mindset that often fuels bingeing. We build skills to “surf” urges without acting on them, increase emotion regulation, and create a plan for high risk moments that is realistic, not punitive. We also address the deeper drivers: anxiety, trauma responses, perfectionism, body shame, and the fear of weight changes. When needed, we will coordinate with medical and nutrition providers to support safety and comprehensive healing.

Binge Eating Disorder Therapy

Binge eating is not a willpower problem! We don’t care how many times doctors, diet plans, social media, and fear mongering news articles have tried to blame you; it’s just not true. For many people, binge eating develops at the intersection of restriction, stress, emotional overwhelm, and shame. Binges can feel dissociative or compulsive, followed by self criticism and a renewed promise to “be good,” which often sets up the next cycle. Weight stigma and diet culture intensify this pattern by framing the body as the problem and control as the solution.

Therapy helps you break the binge-shame-restriction-binge cycle without replacing it with another rigid, self-blaming plan. We will focus on consistent nourishment, reducing the fear and moral charge around food, and building regulation skills for emotional distress, loneliness, fatigue, and overwhelm. We also work directly with body shame, internalized stigma, and the nervous system patterns that drive urgency. Our goal is to help you restore choice and agency, a sense of security, and a friendly, shame-free relationship with food and body that does not require punishment.

ARFID Therapy

ARFID is a restrictive eating disorder that is not driven by weight or shape concerns. Restriction is often linked to sensory sensitivity, low interest in eating, or fear of aversive consequences such as choking, nausea, vomiting, or getting sick. ARFID can make daily life and social life incredibly complicated, and it can carry significant nutrition and health consequences over time.

Therapy for ARFID is structured, practical, and paced. We build safety in the body first, then work on gradually expanding flexibility with food in ways that feel doable. Treatment may include developing coping skills, exposure-based support that respects consent and capacity, and collaboration with an eating disorder specialized dietitian when appropriate. We also consider overlapping factors such as emetophobia, panic, trauma history, and neurodivergence, because effective care treats the whole system, not just the food list.

Compulsive Exercise Therapy

When exercise stops being a choice and becomes a requirement, you may be experiencing compulsive exercise. You might feel guilt, anxiety, or panic if you miss a workout, even when you are sick, injured, exhausted, or your body simply needs rest. Exercise can become a way to manage food anxiety, cope with distress, or prove worth, and fitness culture often reinforces it by praising intensity and discipline. Over time, compulsive exercise can strain relationships, increase anxiety, and deepen eating disorder rigidity.

Therapy helps restore agency. We will work on tolerating rest, reducing fear-based exercise rules, and reconnecting to body signals rather than external metrics. Treatment often includes skills for distress tolerance, work with perfectionism and self worth, and addressing the trauma or anxiety that exercise has been regulating. Recovery means building a flexible and intuitive relationship with exercise that supports your health, your values, and your life. Some people choose to go on an exercise hiatus to restore physical health and connection with the body, and we often recommend this approach when medically or psychologically indicated. However, we value autonomy most of all, and you alone choose how to ultimately care for your body.

Chronic Dieting Therapy

Chronic dieting can quietly consume years of your life. Many people feel stuck in cycles of rules, “falling off,” self blame, and starting over, with increasing fear around certain foods and a shrinking sense of trust in their body. Body checking, constant comparisons, and the feeling that your worth is conditional can become the background noise of daily life. Medical and social messaging can intensify this, especially when weight loss is framed as the primary marker of health (not true).

Therapy supports you in stepping out of diet cycling, and rebuilding a steadier relationship with food and your body. We work on dismantling restrictive rules, reducing shame, and strengthening attunement to hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and emotion. This is also where we address the broader context: diet culture conditioning, weight stigma experiences, identity stress, and family patterns around food and bodies. The aim is sustainable wellbeing, and we do not align with diet culture, or you needing another plan that ultimately fails you and then blames you.

Emotional Eating Therapy

Emotional eating makes sense and really works to soothe big feelings and hard times. Food is accessible, predictable, and regulating, especially when you are stressed, lonely, anxious, or depleted. Most people find it problematic, though, when food becomes the only coping tool, and when eating is followed by guilt, self criticism, or compensatory restriction that sets up the next round. Emotional eating can also be amplified by chronic stress, trauma history, perfectionism, and nervous system overload. Over time, emotional eating becomes routine, contributes to emotion avoidance, and makes it harder to cope in different ways.

Therapy helps expand your coping capacity without shaming you. We will build emotion regulation skills, stress recovery strategies, and self soothing tools that do not rely solely on food. We also work on loosening diet culture beliefs that fuel guilt and urgency, so eating can become more neutral and more connected. Our goal is to help you reduce distress and get back to feeing in charge of your life, while creating a relationship with food that supports you rather than punishes you.