Eating Disorder Treatment
Non-judgmental, low-pressure help when eating behaviors may be making you anxious, preoccupied and doubting yourself. Monarch therapists are specifically trained to help people with eating issues to find freedom again
Every Monarch Wellness therapist undergoes extensive training and education on eating disorders, offering true expertise in this area. Reach out for a no-fee, no-commitment consultation.
Does thinking about food take up too much space in your head?
Do you have trouble giving your body the nourishment it needs?
Do texture and taste issues get in the way of eating well?
Do you use food to deal with your feelings?
Does a lot of your self-worth hinge on how you feel about your body?
Eating disorders span a lot of different behaviors as well as reasons for those behaviors.
If you answered yes to one or more of the questions above, though, you might be dealing with disordered eating.
Eating disorder therapists can offer specialized support to help you understand your relationship with food and your body.
Issues such as anorexia, bulimia, ARFID, binge eating, yo-yo dieting or emotional eating do not have to keep you from living the life that you want.
Take the first step by scheduling a no-fee, no-commitment consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Eating Disorders and Eating Disorder Recovery
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Eating disorders often have a genetic component, even if the trait has been recessive in your family for generations. However, the environment is what causes the eating disorder to become active. Society places a tremendous emphasis on weight and body, which can impact people even without their awareness. For other eating disorders, neurologically based sensitivities may play more of a role.
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Every eating disorder has its own set of symptoms, but the unifying theme is that food and body concerns have somehow failed to keep their place as only one important part of your life. They get in the way of relationships, self-worth, or achievement. Often, deeper emotional problems are played out in the arena of food.
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In reality, no two eating disorders are alike. However, for the purposes diagnosis there are a few conditions that we tend to look at more generally.
Anorexia: Difficulty eating enough food, tendency to restrict calories or food groups. Sometimes compulsive exercise or purging.
Bulimia: Feeling driven to get rid of nourishment consumed through a variety of means.
Binge Eating Disorder: Recurrent episodes of eating much more than your body can handle, often with a spacy or dissociative feeling.
Emotional Eating: Eating in order to deal with your feelings in a more ongoing way than is present in Binge Eating Disorder (not an official diagnosis, yet)
Orthorexia: Overemphasis on “clean eating”, to the extent that it gets in the way of living well and nourishing the body completely.
ARFID: Short for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, this condition is not about body shape or size but rather some difficulty with the tastes and textures of foods.
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We typically like to help a person figure out the needs an eating disorder is meeting for them such as falsifying self-worth, offering control, or dealing with anxiety.
We help clients to find other ways of meeting those needs, and they often find that unhelpful food-related behaviors decrease as a result.
Monarch Wellness therapists prefer to treat eating disorders on a team if possible. With a dietitian and primary care doctor keeping an eye on the physical side of things, we can help with the emotions.
We treat eating disorders by sitting down one-on-one with individuals, offering family therapy, and providing group sessions.
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Absolutely. Monarch therapists believe that full recovery from disordered eating is possible. We have seen clients break entirely free from the eating issues and associated anxiety, depression and obsession that were keeping them back to build creative, fulfilling, successful lives.
Common Eating Disorder Diagnoses
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Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa is a devastating illness that robs you of your joy, your peace of mind, and eventually your health. It is generally an extreme desire to lose weight and a fear of gaining it. People might go to extreme lengths to not eat as much as their body needs. Anorexia takes a toll on physical health, relationships, life achievements and sense of self.
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Bulimia Nervosa
Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by cycles of binging and purging behaviors. People with bulimia often end up eating large amounts of food (binging) and then try to get rid of the calories (purging). There are many behaviors people engage in to try to rid themselves of the calories, but purging is never actually an effective means of weight loss.
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Binge-Eating Disorder
People with a binge-eating disorder frequently overeat and often feel a lack of control around food. An individual with a binge-eating disorder may feel remorse about their binge, but they do not partake in purging behaviors. It is important to note that people who suffer from binge-eating disorders can be of any size.
Other common eating disorders
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Disordered eating describes the behavior of a person who does not meet the criteria to be diagnosed with an eating disorder, but has an unhealthy relationship with food. For example, extreme dieting, following fad diets, fasting, or eating a highly unbalanced diet can all be manifestations of disordered eating. Disordered eating might be seen as “normal” in some areas of society, but it takes a tremendous toll on the way a person feels about themselves.
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Compulsive overeating and emotional eating are terms for the same thing: eating in order to soothe your feelings. These conditions are fairly similar to Binge Eating Disorder. However, they don’t happen within a short period of time. Rather, a person with compulsive overeating or emotional eating turns to food throughout the day. This is not an official diagnosis but it is a very common experience.
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Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is a unique challenge that goes beyond mere pickiness. ARFID can be centered around a limited range of accepted foods, often rooted in sensory sensitivities, fear of aversive consequences, or a lack of interest in eating. ARFID treatment can help people to become more able to eat a wider variety of foods, meet their nutritional needs and feel comfortable in diverse food situations.
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Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED) is a diagnosis used when someone’s eating disorder symptoms don’t meet the criteria for specific disorders like anorexia, bulimia, or OSFED, but still cause significant distress or impairment. UFED is often used when there’s not enough information for a more detailed diagnosis, but immediate attention is needed. This diagnosis ensures that individuals still receive care, even if the specific nature of their disorder isn’t fully clear yet.
Orthorexia: An obsessive focus on "pure" or "healthy" eating that leads to severe restriction, malnutrition, and health complications, but doesn’t fit into any specific DSM-5 category as they are written right now
Muscle Dysmorphia: A subtype of body dysmorphic disorder where individuals become preoccupied with not being muscular enough, leading to compulsive exercise or restrictive eating, often with severe consequences.
Unexplained Restrictive Eating: Restricting food intake without meeting the criteria for anorexia or ARFID, yet causing significant harm or distress.
Irregular Bingeing or Purging: Occasional binge eating or purging behaviors that don’t meet the frequency or severity required for bulimia or binge eating disorder.
Body Image Concerns with Disordered Eating: Disordered eating driven by body image issues that don’t fit into a specific disorder like anorexia or bulimia.
Picky Eating in Adults: Extremely selective eating that interferes with nutrition and functioning, but doesn’t meet ARFID criteria.
Cultural or Religious-Based Eating Practices: Restrictive eating based on cultural or religious practices that lead to health issues but don’t align with recognized eating disorders.
Intermittent Eating Disorders: Disordered eating behaviors that occur sporadically, without a consistent pattern, but cause harm.
Emotion-Driven Eating Behaviors: Eating behaviors linked to emotional distress (e.g., stress eating) that impact health, without meeting criteria for bulimia or binge eating disorder.
Subclinical Forms of Existing Disorders: Early or milder forms of anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder that don’t meet full diagnostic criteria.
Chewing and Spitting: A behavior where individuals chew food and spit it out to avoid calorie intake while still experiencing the taste.
Extreme Exercise with Disordered Eating: Compulsive exercise behaviors driven by a desire to alter body shape or size, often combined with disordered eating.
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Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorders (OSFED) is a serious and often misunderstood eating disorder that affects people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. Despite being one of the most common eating disorders, OSFED is frequently overlooked, leading many to feel invalidated in their struggles.
The Freedom to Achieve the Life You Truly Want
Anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, compulsive overeating, emotional eating, and disordered eating can control your whole life, but you can take back control.
Monarch therapists help people struggling with these behaviors. We will work with work you to help you deeply understand what is causing your unhealthy relationship with food. Often, emotional factors such as low self-worth play a role in your relationship with food. Additionally, we will help you to empower yourself by offering you real-world tools to help you actively combat your eating disorder day by day.
We help our clients feel more comfortable in their bodies. When people are really at ease in their skins they will experience less anxiety, depression, guilt, and stress around eating. To put it simply, nurturing your body and your mind is nurturing yourself.
Take the next step toward healing right now
Schedule a confidential twenty-minute video or phone consultation. This service is free and you are not committed to moving forward.
We are Committed to Helping Clients Heal from Their Eating Disorder
At Monarch Wellness, our goal goes beyond controlling the symptoms of an eating disorder. We want our clients to find true freedom from guilt and fear.
Monarch therapists are deeply committed to the idea that freedom from eating disorders is possible. Finding freedom from an eating disorder means finding greater peace of mind, connectedness with others, and the ability to contribute to the world in a genuinely meaningful way.
We believe that eating disorders develop in order to help you to meet emotional needs. Once you begin meeting your actual needs, the need for the eating disordered behavior can become much less intense. With tools and techniques for tackling the habits that have formed and the support of a good therapist, the symptoms can be tackled much more easily.
Our approach to eating disorder treatment
Ready to start finding freedom?
Monarch Wellness therapists offer a twenty-minute video consultation that is completely free and does not imply any commitment. See if one of our therapists might be right for you.