Services
Eating Disorder Therapy
Evidence-based treatment for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, orthorexia, and disordered eating, in person in Jacksonville or by telehealth.
It is not your fault
Most of us fall somewhere along a spectrum in our relationship with food, exercise, and body image.
It is not your fault if you have found yourself in a disordered pattern with food or movement. Life is hard, and our minds do the very best they can to cope with life's trials and tribulations.
The good news is that you can live a life where you persevere through challenges, accept your emotions, and hold a flexible, healthy relationship with food.
When approaching treatment for disordered eating, know that I firmly believe in health at every size, that all foods fit into a balanced life, and that movement and exercise should bring joy rather than feel like a chore.
The spectrum
Where a relationship with food can sit
Nobody sits in one column forever, and the middle is where most people find themselves before anyone uses the word disorder.
A settled relationship
- Eats regularly and listens to body cues
- Believes self-worth is not tied to weight
- Exercises for fun
- Does not assign morality, good or bad, to foods
- Sees food as more than just fuel
Disordered patterns
- Always trying a new diet
- Feels guilty after eating
- Exercises only to burn calories
- Only sees flaws in your body
- Creates strict rules around eating
- Often feels out of control when eating
- Denies yourself food
- Isolates from others because of food
An eating disorder
- Restricts food despite harmful consequences
- Sees self only as a body rather than a whole person
- Excessive exercise or other compensatory behaviors that lead to physical or psychological instability
- Hating yourself and your body
- Uses food as the primary or only way to cope with emotions
You do not have to reach the right-hand column to deserve help.
What I treat
The full range, not just the textbook cases
You do not need a formal diagnosis, or a severe one, to deserve support. Many people who come to me have spent years deciding they were not sick enough to ask.
Anorexia Nervosa
Restriction, fear of weight gain, and the rigidity that grows around them. Treatment usually involves a wider medical team, and often weight restoration as a goal.
Bulimia Nervosa
Cycles of bingeing and compensating, and the shame that keeps the cycle private and self-sustaining.
Binge Eating Disorder
Episodes that feel out of control, usually paired with restriction earlier in the day that nobody counted as restriction.
Orthorexia
When clean eating stops being about health and starts running your schedule, your social life, and your sense of being a good person.
OSFED and subclinical patterns
Real, impairing, and common. Not meeting every criterion in a manual does not mean you are fine.
Exercise and movement concerns
Compulsive training, exercising to earn or undo food, and the panic that arrives on a rest day.
My stance
Health at Every Size, and all foods fit
When approaching treatment for disordered eating, I firmly believe in health at every size, that all foods fit into a balanced life, and that movement should bring joy rather than feel like a chore.
On weight loss
As a Health at Every Size and Intuitive Eating based clinician, I do not actively pursue weight loss with clients in therapy. I will always respect your autonomy and your power of choice, so long as what you choose does not pose a significant medical or psychological risk to you.
On assessment
Eating disorder treatment is nuanced and deeply personal. My approach is to carefully assess your goals and symptom severity while considering the intersecting medical, psychological, and nutritional pieces, because those three are never really separable.
That assessment informs what I recommend, which sometimes includes a wider outpatient team: a primary care doctor, a dietitian, and occasionally a psychiatrist.
If your symptoms need a higher level of care, I will tell you rather than stretch outpatient work past what it can hold.
On nutrition and therapy
For certain eating disorders, weight restoration may be a primary treatment goal. This matters in therapy specifically, because without adequate nutrition your brain has limited capacity to absorb the work we are doing together. Insight is a physiological process as much as a psychological one.
You can persevere through challenges, accept your emotions, and have a flexible, healthy relationship with food.
Questions people ask
About eating disorder treatment
Look for someone whose training is specifically in eating disorders rather than a generalist who takes the occasional case, and ask directly how many clients like you they see in a week. I am an eating disorder therapist based in Jacksonville, and I also see clients throughout the PSYPACT states by telehealth, so near me does not have to mean the same city.
Recovery is worth the discomfort of starting
Book a free 15 minute consultation and we will talk about where you are and what would actually help.
Book a free consultation