What We Treat
Your relationship with food.
Your health. Your healing. You.
Eating disorders are complex but treatable mental health conditions characterized by persistent disturbances in eating behaviors. These disturbances almost always stem from something deeper, ultimately impacting one’s health, relationships, lifestyle, and ability to function on nearly every level.
Eating disorders are not a choice. They result from a complicated interweave of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors.
At Empowered, we specialize in treating men and women whose eating disorders are tangled with trauma, mental health, identity, and real-life responsibilities, and those who don’t fit the hospital-style mold.
Find help for:
Anorexia
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Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that involves severe restriction of food intake and an extreme fear of gaining weight. People with Anorexia Nervosa often have a distorted view of their body, commonly perceiving their body to be larger than it is, and are often unable to recognize the severity of their low body weight. Additionally, Anorexia can also present with binge and purge behaviors. The constant mental noise filled with thoughts around food, weight, and calories can often become all consuming. Restricting food can, at times, be a reflection of a need to control something - often when other aspects of life seem chaotic, painful, or uncertain. Perfectionism and low self-esteem are common characteristics of people with Anorexia. Common co-occuring disorders are: Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Substance Use Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Border Line Personality Disorder.
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Atypical Anorexia is the diagnostic term for those who also engage in severe, restrictive eating behaviors and have an extreme fear of gaining weight - however, they do not present with significantly or dangerously low body weight. This is the most common type of Anorexia, and can often be dismissed or overlooked due to misconceptions about body size and weight stigma. Atypical Anorexia has the same medical and psychological consequences associated with Anorexia.
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Our team at Empowered will help you heal your relationship with food and your body, working with you to explore and challenge rules and myths around food and bodyweight. While we help build coping skills to manage anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and perfectionism, you will also work with a dietitian to provide guidance on achieving and maintaining nutritional stabilization. EmpowerED can also help with enhancing self-advocacy skills for dealing with weight bias and stigma as you move forward with your healing. Our goal is to help you reintegrate back into the world with a sense of body-neutrality, along with all of the necessary skills to move forward with passion and purpose.
ARFID
(Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder)
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ARFID is an eating disorder that involves nutritional deficiency and/or significant weight loss due to avoidance of certain foods or disinterest in food. Avoidance of food is usually in response to sensory issues or fear, such as choking or vomiting. Living with ARFID can be frustrating and isolating. Eating is accompanied with feelings of extreme fear and anxiety or shame, which can be exacerbated when eating with other people. People with ARFID frequently feel misunderstood as their experience is often minimized by others’ perceptions that they are just picky eaters. Autism, ADHD, and Anxiety disorders commonly co-occur with ARFID.
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Empowered will collaborate with you to gradually tackle fears and sensitivities related to certain types of food. Our registered dietician will work with you to decrease nutritional deficiencies by focusing on sufficient intake, along with safe foods, and eventually working to expand the variety of safe foods. We are here to help understand and reduce the anxiety involved around eating, and to help build the necessary coping skills to face these challenges with dignity and compassion.
Binge Eating Disorder
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Binge-Eating Disorder (BED) is an eating disorder that involves recurrent episodes where an individual eats a large amount of food in a relatively short amount of time. During the binge, the person experiences a feeling of lack of control over how much or what they are eating. They might also feel disconnected from their bodies. Binges are often followed by extreme feelings of disgust, shame, depression, and regret. The intensity of these emotions can lead the person to “overcorrect” by restricting their food intake. However, this restriction increases physiological drive to binge and the cycle repeats. People living with BED often feel emotionally drained and hopeless against this cycle. They can be self-critical and often internalize their binges as problems of willpower - when this could not be further from the truth. Anxiety, Depression, and history of trauma commonly co-occur with BED.
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At Empowered, we will help you foster trust and connection with your body through trauma-informed therapy and personalized nutritional support. We will help you challenge feelings of shame with a better understanding of underlying emotional triggers, as well as the development of the coping skills needed to navigate difficult and painful emotions.
Bulimia
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Bulimia Nervosa is an eating disorder which involves a persistent cycle of binge eating and purging behaviors. Common purging behaviors associated with Bulimia include self-induced vomiting, fasting, compulsive exercise, and/or the use of laxatives and other medications. Those with Bulimia frequently hold a negative view of themselves that is heavily influenced by their perception of body weight and shape. People who have bulimia often experience intense feelings of shame and anxiety. Living with Bulimia is like being in an internal battle between secrecy and shame, all with a desperate desire for control. A history of trauma or abuse, and co-occurring depression and anxiety are common.
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Our team at Empowered is here to help you address the emotional and trauma-related triggers contributing to the binge and purge cycle. We will develop emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills to decrease reliance on your eating disorder behaviors. Our dietitian will also provide guidance to help with nutritional stabilization, as well as help challenge negative beliefs about food and the body that perpetuate eating disorder behaviors. As always, our goal is to help you reintegrate back into the world with a sense of body-neutrality, along with all of the necessary skills to move forward with passion and purpose.
OSFED
(Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder)
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OSFED is the diagnostic category used for those who have persistent disordered eating behaviors, but who do not fully meet criteria for any specific eating disorder diagnosis. This should not be interpreted as being less severe. People with OSFED have the same physical and emotional risks associated with other eating disorder diagnoses. People living with OSFED may struggle with self-doubt, often minimizing their own experiences of having an eating disorder.
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Empowered will support you with personalized therapeutic and nutritional support to aid in the reduction of eating disorder behaviors. We do this by increasing distress tolerance embodiment and awareness, while working to heal the underlying traumas that may have contributed to the development of your eating disorder.