MY APPROACH
How I work and what that means for you
Eating disorders are not really about food. They are complex, layered responses to pain, identity, attachment, and the search for safety. Before we can address what you are eating or not eating, we have to understand what the eating disorder has been doing for you and what it has been protecting you from.
That understanding is where my work begins.
What it's like to work together
My sessions are exploratory and collaborative. I don't come in with a script. I follow what you bring: the things you haven't been able to say out loud, the patterns you've started to notice, the moments that surprised you. And I work alongside you to understand what they mean.
I am warm and direct in equal measure. I will create space for things to unfold slowly when that's what's needed. I will also name what I'm seeing when I think it will help. If something feels important, I'll say so.
Many of my clients have spent years feeling unseen or misunderstood, by providers, by family members, sometimes by themselves. I take that seriously. My job is to earn your trust, stay curious, and make this a place where you don't have to edit yourself.
Therapeutic approaches
My clinical framework is integrative. I draw from multiple modalities depending on what each person needs. Here is how I think about the tools I use:
Psychodynamic Therapy
Eating disorders rarely exist in isolation. This approach explores the deeper emotional roots beneath eating disorder behaviors, looking at patterns that developed over time and what the eating disorder may be communicating that words haven't been able to say yet. Together, we examine how early experiences and relationships shape the way you think and feel today, and what it might mean to relate to yourself and your body differently. This is slow, careful work that creates lasting change from the inside out.
Enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Eating Disorders (CBT-E)
CBT-E is one of the most researched and effective treatments for eating disorders available. It focuses on identifying the specific thoughts, behaviors, and maintaining mechanisms that keep an eating disorder in place, and gradually replacing them with more flexible, helpful ways of thinking about food, body, and self. Treatment is structured and collaborative, with a clear map of where we are and where we are going. CBT-E is especially well-suited for people who want to understand the logic of their eating disorder and actively work to dismantle it.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT provides practical, concrete skills for managing intense emotions, tolerating distress without turning to harmful behaviors, and building more stable relationships. It is especially useful when emotions feel overwhelming or when the eating disorder is connected to self-harm, impulsivity, or difficulty regulating feelings. Rather than asking you to simply stop a behavior, DBT teaches you what to do instead, building a toolkit you can reach for in the hardest moments. The goal is a life that feels worth living, not just a life free of symptoms.
Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT)
Eating disorders thrive in disconnection. EFFT is built on the understanding that when caregivers feel equipped and emotionally present, they become one of the most powerful forces in their child's recovery. This approach helps parents and loved ones move through their own fear, grief, and helplessness so they can show up with the kind of calm, attuned presence that makes it safer for their child to let go of the eating disorder. We work on emotional coaching skills, repair after difficult moments, and rebuilding the relational trust that eating disorders so often erode.
Attachment Theory
Attachment theory helps us understand how early relationships shape a person's sense of safety, self-worth, and connection to others. In therapy, we use this lens to understand how those early patterns may be showing up now in the way you relate to food, your body, and the people around you. Eating disorders are often deeply relational, and healing frequently involves not just changing behaviors but rebuilding a more secure relationship with yourself. Understanding where these patterns came from is often the first step toward loosening their hold.
Intersubjective Theory
Intersubjective theory is rooted in the idea that we come to know ourselves through relationship. Rather than viewing the self as something fixed and interior, this approach understands identity, emotion, and meaning as things that emerge in the space between people. In therapy, this means that the relationship itself becomes the medium of healing. We pay attention to what happens between us in the room, how you experience being seen and understood, and what it feels like when that goes well or falls short. For people whose sense of self has been shaped by an eating disorder, this relational attunement can be quietly transformative.
Weight-neutral, HAES-informed care
My practice is rooted in Health at Every Size (HAES) principles and informed by intuitive eating. I do not use weight as a measure of health or recovery progress, and I will not encourage restriction or dieting in any form.Instead, we work toward rebuilding trust with your body, making peace with food, and releasing the rules that have kept you stuck. Many of my clients have been harmed by weight-focused care before reaching me. I want you to know that will not happen here.The goal is not a number on a scale. It is a life where food takes up less space in your mind, and you take up more.
Family-Based Treatment (FBT)
FBT is one of the most effective, evidence-based approaches for adolescents with eating disorders. Rather than placing the burden of recovery on your teen, this model recognizes that parents are the most powerful resource in early recovery — and puts the family at the center of treatment. Together, we work to restore nourishment first, then gradually return autonomy to your teen as their health stabilizes, and finally shift focus toward the developmental work of adolescence. FBT is especially well-suited when the eating disorder is still relatively recent or when medical stabilization is a priority.
A note on ambivalence
Most people who come to eating disorder therapy are not entirely sure they want to be there. A part of them does. Another part is frightened, attached to the disorder, or not convinced that recovery is possible for them. That is not a problem. That is the work.I will not push you toward a version of recovery you haven't had a chance to want yet. We start where you actually are.
What early sessions look like
Early in treatment, I often recommend meeting more frequently. This is not about intensity for its own sake. It is about building the kind of consistency that interrupts entrenched patterns before they can reassert themselves. Research shows that early progress, even small shifts, is one of the strongest predictors of long-term recovery.
Our first full session is a comprehensive assessment. I want to understand your history, your relationship with food, your support system, what you've tried before, and what you are hoping for. It is also a chance for you to get a sense of what working with me feels like.
From there, we build a treatment plan together, one that reflects your goals, your pace, and where you are right now. As things become more stable, we adjust the rhythm to fit your life and support ongoing growth.
Have questions about whether my approach is a good fit? Schedule a free 15-minute call. No commitment, just a conversation.