Comprehensive outpatient treatment, designed to heal more than your relationship with food.
Empowered is an adult eating disorder outpatient program in Austin, Texas. With varying levels of support, our ultimate goal is to uncover the function of your eating disorder, build new ways of coping, and restore trust with food, your body, and yourself.
What we offer, and who it's for.
Outpatient treatment bridges the gap between weekly therapy and residential treatment. (For a complete map of every level of eating disorder care, see our guide to levels of care.) You live at home, or at our transitional housing, keep contact with work, school, and family, and come to us either 3 or 5 days per week for structured treatment: groups, individual sessions, nutrition work, and supported meals.
Outpatient treatment tends to fit two kinds of people especially well: those stepping down from residential who need continued structure, and those stepping up because weekly outpatient therapy is not enough to shift their behaviors. In both cases, the goal is the same: enough support to change, enough freedom to practice that change in real life.
Our intensive outpatient program (IOP) is running now, and a partial hospitalization program (PHP), a higher level of outpatient care with more structured hours each week, is launching soon.
- Who: adults of all genders with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, OSFED, ARFID, and co-occurring trauma or mental health concerns
- What: group therapy, individual therapy, nutrition counseling, supported meals, psychiatric and medical monitoring, family education, experiential outings, coaching, housing, and yoga
- Where: an intentionally designed space off Spicewood Springs Rd. in the hills of Northwest Austin
- How it starts: one confidential phone call and a comprehensive assessment
What your week includes
Group therapy & daily process groups
The heart of the program. Skills groups build emotional regulation and coping capacity; process groups turn a roomful of strangers into the community that carries you through recovery.
Individual therapy
One-on-one work with therapists who specialize in eating disorders and trauma, using CBT, DBT, EMDR when appropriate, IFS-informed and somatic approaches.
Nutrition counseling & food groups
Weekly sessions with registered dietitians, personalized meal plans, and dietitian-led food groups that rebuild trust with food one meal at a time.
Supported meals
Meals eaten together with clinical support present, because the hardest moments of recovery happen at the table, and no one should face them alone.
Psychiatric & medical monitoring
Initial psychiatric evaluation, medical evaluation with labs and history, medication review and management when clinically appropriate, and ongoing monitoring for safety.
Family education & involvement
Education, communication support, and family work guided by your consent. See A Family's Guide to IOP.
Yoga & somatic work
Gentle, invitational practices that help you reconnect with a body that may not have felt safe in a long time.
Continued-care planning
Before your program ends, we build your next layer of support together: outpatient providers, groups, psychiatry, and ongoing trauma work where appropriate.
Experiential outings
Opportunities to practice real-life skills with your treatment team and community, including grocery shopping, eating out at restaurants, meal planning, and exploring Austin through a recovery lens.
Optional coaching & housing
Clients can supplement their programming with experiential coaching and transitional housing. Coaches help clients navigate the world and build skills, and housing in nearby Hyde Park provides a supportive living environment that bridges the gap between residential treatment and living independently.
Evidence-based, individualized.
No single modality fits every person, so our clinicians are trained across the approaches with the strongest evidence in eating disorder and trauma care:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): restructuring the thoughts and rules that drive eating disorder behavior.
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): practical skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and relationships.
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): trauma-focused processing, carefully paced to your stability and readiness.
- IFS-informed and parts-informed therapy: understanding eating disorder behaviors as protective parts that once served a purpose.
- Somatic therapy and yoga: nervous system regulation and body reconnection.
- Family work: education and communication support drawing on family-based therapy principles when appropriate.
When trauma is part of your story, these approaches are woven into a trauma-integrated treatment plan: stabilization begins immediately, and deeper processing is matched to your medical, nutritional, psychiatric, and emotional stability. The clinical reasoning behind that pacing is explained in our Eating Disorders and Trauma guide.
Intentional.
Doing this work is hard enough without a space that feels clinical. Our center was built warm on purpose: natural light, views for miles, soft seating, and rooms that feel more like a home than a facility. It is where group happens, where supported meals happen, and where a lot of people feel at ease for the first time in a long time. Take a look inside our space.
From first call to first day.
- You make the call. A confidential conversation with a real member of our team. Tell us what has been going on; we will listen and answer all the questions you have.
- Pre-assessment. A comprehensive look at your history with food, medical and psychiatric needs, trauma history if you choose to share it, and your goals. Can be done in person or remotely.
- Your plan. Your individual therapist and dietitian sit down with you to develop a treatment plan and meal plan that meet you where you are. We revisit and adapt these as your recovery progresses.
- Your first day of programming. You start with a team that already knows your story and goals, and a community that gets it.
How many hours per week is the program?
Our IOP program is 9 hours a week, plus a weekly individual session with your therapist, dietitian, and psychiatric provider, all designed to fit alongside work, school, and real life.
Is there a step-down or continued care afterward?
Yes. Continued-care planning is part of the program, not an afterthought. Before you finish, we work with you to build the right next layer of support: outpatient therapists, dietitians, PCP, psychiatry, support groups, and continued trauma-focused work where appropriate.
Structure that fits your life. Support that changes it.
Call today and we will talk through whether outpatient treatment is the right level of care for you or someone you love.