It feels incredibly vulnerable when you are struggling with eating disorder symptoms and realize that you might need help. You feel embarrassed and terrified that you’ll be judged if you open up about what you are experiencing and feeling. Finding the right eating disorder therapist is essential in your journey to eating disorder recovery. When you are feeling tender and afraid on the inside, you need a place where you know you’re going to be safe. You need to be able to find the one that you connect with you and is the best fit for your personality and your struggles.
Treating eating disorders is a specific specialty that requires specific training and knowledge to be able to help you overcome your eating disorder. The truth is when you work with a therapist without this specialty, it can harm you. Eating disorders are mental health condition that directly impacts your physical health. Finding a therapist that can help you navigate both is going to make a huge difference in your healing. Let’s talk more about why it’s important to find the right eating disorder therapist for you.
The right eating disorder therapist knows the best approach to therapy
Eating disorders require a specific approach to have the best outcomes for success. I have worked with many clients that worked with a general therapist before deciding they needed to find a therapist that specifically treated eating disorders. There’s no doubt that their therapists were doing the best they could with the knowledge they had. However, without having experience in treating eating disorders, the clients shared they didn’t seem to make progress in the ways they wanted to.
Eating disorders are complex mental health diagnoses. They involve multiple factors that contribute to their development and knowing how to deal with each of these is important. Underneath eating disorders there may be anxiety, depression, and traumatic experiences that are part of the equation. Body image issues and low self-esteem also contribute to eating disorders. On top of all of that, people with eating disorders often have medical conditions to stabilize on top of their eating disorders. A good eating disorder therapist will know that this is not a quick process and will focus on helping you become medically stable and consistently eating first before jumping into working through trauma and other aspects of eating disorder recovery.
The right eating disorder therapist will help you find the best coping strategies
When you're struggling with an eating disorder, finding effective coping skills is crucial for managing difficult emotions, triggers, and behaviors related to food and body image. A skilled eating disorder therapist can help you identify and develop coping skills that are specific to your unique needs and eating disorder behaviors. They can teach you skills like mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and problem-solving, which can help you manage difficult emotions and cope with the triggers that can fuel disordered eating behaviors. With the support of a skilled eating disorder therapist, you can develop a range of coping strategies that work for you as a unique person with unique needs, and help you overcome your eating disorder. Over time, you can learn to replace maladaptive coping mechanisms with healthier ones and gain the tools and skills you need to maintain your eating disorder recovery throughout your life.
The right eating disorder therapist will provide a supportive and safe environment
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you feel safe in eating disorder therapy to make progress in recovery. The right eating disorder therapist will provide the right environment for you to not feel judged but for you to feel accepted and validated. You deserve to feel heard and understood. The best eating disorder therapist for you will help you feel hopeful for your recovery and help you trust that you can do it even if it’s hard. A skilled eating disorder therapist will be aware of the unique issues and circumstances that someone with an eating disorder will have and will know how to address and work through them. You need a therapist that will have the resources and information to provide you with more understanding of your eating disorder. With the help of the right eating disorder therapist, you can gain a better understanding of the underlying issues driving your disordered eating behaviors and develop more self-awareness that can be incredibly valuable in the recovery process.
The right eating disorder therapist will know they can’t do it all
Because eating disorders are complex, they often require more than just meeting with a therapist once a week. A good eating disorder therapist will know to recommend you to other providers to support you such as a dietitian, a psychiatrist, and a medical provider. All of these areas are important in being able to ensure you are in the best position for a full recovery. There are times when seeing a therapist once a week is not enough to support someone with an eating disorder. An experienced eating disorder therapist will be able to properly evaluate if you need more structured support because they know they can’t do it all. Eating disorder recovery requires a team approach and you deserve to work with people that specifically know how to treat all angles of your eating disorder.
Trust your gut when it comes to finding the right eating disorder therapist for you
The most important thing I can emphasize to you is to trust your gut when it comes to picking the right eating disorder therapist for you. This is the most valuable thing that I want my clients to learn in eating disorder recovery, and that is to learn to listen to their own needs and opinion on what’s best for them. Eating disorders disconnect you from your identity and numb your desires as they are often focused on pleasing everyone else. You don’t have to people-please when it comes to your eating disorder recovery. You don’t have to do that in healing from your eating disorder. You get to decide what is right and what feels best. Trust that. You are the expert on yourself and what you need. If something doesn’t click or feel right, you get to choose someone else. Keep having hope that you will find the right therapist that you feel comfortable with and who knows exactly how to help you.
Eating disorder therapy in Utah can help you heal
Working with the right therapist in eating disorder therapy can help you overcome your eating disorder. You can learn to work through your anxiety around food and why you don’t trust yourself eating. You can have more self-compassion for yourself and stop being so critical of yourself for everything. Eating disorder therapy can help you understand how your past experiences may be contributing to how you feel about yourself and your body. Eating disorder counseling can help you leave your eating disorder behind and live a happy and fulfilling life.
Start working with an eating disorder therapist in Utah
You don’t have to keep feeling this way. You don’t have to feel stuck and overwhelmed by eating and your body. Eating disorder therapy can help. This Utah Counseling Practice has an eating disorder therapist who specializes in treating eating disorders. To begin therapy follow the steps below:
Meet with a therapist for eating disorders
Begin recovery
Online eating disorder therapy in Utah
It’s important to be able to have an eating disorder therapist you connect with regardless of where you live. Many cities in Utah don’t have an eating disorder therapist who has specialized training and experience in treating eating disorders. This is why I provide online therapy in Utah. Online eating disorder therapy is just as effective as in-person therapy without you having to travel or commute to a therapy office.
Online counseling also means I work with clients all over the state of Utah. I work with clients in Cedar City, St. George, Provo, Heber City, Salt Lake City, Logan, and more.
Other mental health services at Maple Canyon Therapy,
Eating disorder therapy isn’t the only counseling service provided by this Utah Counseling Clinic. Other mental health services provided by Maple Canyon Therapy include anxiety therapy, binge eating disorder treatment, body image therapy, birth trauma therapy, EMDR therapy, and therapy for college students. Reach out for a free 15-minute phone consultation to see how I can help.
About the Author
Ashlee Hunt is an eating disorder therapist and founder of Maple Canyon Therapy near Provo, Utah. Ashlee has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a bachelor's degree in family life and human development from Southern Utah University. She obtained her master's in social work from Utah State University. Ashlee has worked with eating disorders at all levels of care including in a psychiatric eating disorder hospital. She understands how important eating disorder recovery is and knows the proper steps to help her clients get there.