Eating Disorder Therapy in Silver Spring, MD
For high-achieving adults when the relationship with food has taken on a life of its own.
Virtual sessions in NY, MD & all PsyPact states · In-person in Silver Spring, MD
You've kept this mostly to yourself. Not because you're ashamed (or maybe partly because of that), but because it's complicated to explain, and because from the outside, things look fine. You're functioning. Achieving. Managing. What's happening with food, with your body, with the voice that counts and calculates and decides: that stays private. It takes up a lot of space, but you've gotten good at making sure it doesn't show. You may not even be certain whether what you're experiencing qualifies as an eating disorder. That question, "am I bad enough to deserve help?" is part of how eating disorders work.
Signs you might benefit from eating disorder therapy in Silver Spring
you might be here because...Food takes up more mental space than you want it to — the calculations, the rules, the second-guessing follow you through the day.
You have food rules that feel like safety, and breaking them — even small infractions — produces anxiety or shame out of proportion to what happened.
Eating around other people, at restaurants, at social events feels harder than it looks for everyone else.
Your relationship with your body is bound up with how you feel about yourself — a bad body day can undermine an otherwise good day entirely.
You've been managing this long enough that it feels like part of who you are, not something separate from you.
You've done meaningful work in recovery and still feel like something is unfinished — the behaviors are quieter but the underlying patterns remain.
You wonder whether you're bad enough to need help, and suspect that question itself is part of the problem.
What an eating disorder specialist with inpatient and outpatient experience understands differently
Most outpatient therapists who treat eating disorders have worked primarily — or only — with clients at the outpatient level: people who are medically stable, already motivated for recovery, functioning well enough to attend weekly sessions. That's a real thing to offer. But it also means the therapist has only encountered the disorder at the stage where it has already agreed to cooperate with treatment.
My background spans the full continuum: inpatient, partial hospitalization (PHP), and outpatient. This means I have worked with eating disorders at every degree of severity and every stage of recovery. I've worked with people in acute medical crisis, in the difficult middle stretch of PHP where early recovery meets daily life, and in the long outpatient work of building a life that doesn't need the eating disorder anymore.
That breadth shapes everything I bring to outpatient work now. I understand what the disorder sounds like at its most powerful. I know the ambivalence that makes recovery feel threatening. And I know what tends to get skipped under time and insurance pressure — the identity work, the body image piece, the question of what the disorder has been doing for you — because I've seen what happens when those pieces are missing.
I also specifically understand the high-functioning eating disorder: the presentation that looks fine from the outside, that doesn't fit what most people picture when they hear "eating disorder," that often goes unidentified or under treated because the person is still achieving. These clients frequently wonder whether their experience is serious enough. It is.
Eating disorder therapy versus body image therapy
Both address the relationship with the body. Both involve the inner critic, shame, and the tangle of worth and appearance. They can look similar from the outside. But they work at different levels, and the distinction matters.
The clinical distinction
Body image therapy works with how you feel about how your body looks — the appearance-based shame, the avoidance, the patterns keeping body criticism running. Eating disorder therapy goes further. It addresses what the eating disorder does for you: how restriction, food rules, bingeing, or compensatory behaviors serve a function — managing anxiety, providing control, organizing identity, numbing what's otherwise too much to feel. Therapy has to work at that level for change to last.
The routing distance
If the complicated part is primarily how your body looks, body image therapy is likely the right frame. If food itself is complicated — if there are behavioral patterns, active recovery work, or a relationship with eating that has its own logic and weight — eating disorder therapy holds all of that, including the body image piece.
How CBT, psychodynamic work, and ACT address eating disorders in high-achievers
Eating disorders in high-achievers often don't look like textbook presentations. The person still performing, still meeting obligations, still managing the eating disorder alongside a functioning life — that person often doesn't recognize themselves in what they read. But the patterns are there: the rigid rules, the food noise, the way the disorder has become a coping strategy for anxiety, a source of control, or an identity that's been there long enough that it's hard to imagine who you'd be without it.
How the frameworks work together for eating disorders.
CBT identifies the thought patterns maintaining the eating disorder — the food rules, the all-or-nothing thinking, the ways the inner critic uses food and body to measure worth. Psychodynamic work goes deeper: understanding what the eating disorder has been doing for you, where that need came from, and what releasing it would actually mean. ACT builds the capacity to tolerate the discomfort of recovery — the anxiety of breaking food rules, the uncertainty of a life not organized around the eating disorder — while moving toward what you actually value. The goal isn't to take something away. It's to understand what it's been holding, and to build something that holds it better.
What eating disorder therapy in Silver Spring can help you work toward
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Understanding what the eating disorder has been doing for you.
Eating disorders persist because they serve a function — managing anxiety, providing control, numbing emotions that feel too large, or organizing identity. Understanding that function isn't an excuse. It's the only way to stop needing it.
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A relationship with food that isn't work.
Food without constant rules, calculations, or consequence. Eating that doesn't require recovery time afterward. Flexibility around food — at restaurants, social events, unplanned situations — that becomes genuinely manageable rather than something you white-knuckle through.
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An identity that doesn't depend on the eating disorder.
For many people who've lived with an eating disorder for years, the question of who they are without it is genuinely frightening. This work addresses that directly — building a sense of self grounded in something other than control, appearance, or the eating disorder's terms.
Who seeks eating disorder therapy at this practice
The people I work with are most often high-achieving adults — professionals, academics, graduate students, people in demanding careers who have managed an eating disorder alongside a functioning life long enough that the two are hard to separate. Many don't have a formal diagnosis and aren't sure they need one. Many have done meaningful recovery work and still feel like something remains unfinished. Some are at the beginning, not sure what to call what they're experiencing. What they share is that the standard ways of describing eating disorders don't quite fit their experience — and they need a therapist who understands that.
Questions people ask about eating disorder therapy late at night
things you might be wondering...
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No. Many of the people I work with don't have a formal diagnosis and don't need one. If your relationship with food is causing real distress, taking up significant mental space, or limiting your life — that's enough reason to seek support.
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Because behavioral recovery and full recovery aren't the same thing. The behaviors can improve significantly while the underlying patterns — the food rules, the body image piece, the function the eating disorder served — remain largely intact. Many people reach a stage where things are much better and still feel something is unfinished. That's a real experience, and it's specifically what this work addresses.
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If you're asking this question, it probably is. Eating disorders are unusual in that severity tends to be significantly underestimated by the person experiencing them — especially in the high-functioning presentation where things look fine from the outside. You don't need to have been in crisis, hospitalized, or visibly unwell. If it's affecting your life, it's serious enough.
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Body image therapy works with how you feel about how your body looks — the shame, the avoidance, the appearance-based self-criticism. Eating disorder therapy works with what the eating disorder does for you: what restriction, food rules, bingeing, or compensatory behaviors are managing emotionally and psychologically. Eating disorder therapy holds the body image piece — but if food itself is the complicated part, that's the right frame.
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Eating disorder treatment varies enormously in depth. Some approaches stay at the behavioral surface without addressing the function the eating disorder serves or the underlying patterns driving it. My work goes deeper — understanding what the eating disorder has been doing for you and where that need came from. Whether that's different from what you've experienced before is worth exploring in a consultation.
Ready to start eating disorder therapy? Schedule a free consultation in Silver Spring or virtually
Recovery often continues long after the behaviors improve — in the mental space food still takes up, the body that still feels like something to manage, the voice that hasn't fully gone quiet.
Whatever stage you're at. Wondering if this counts, in the middle of recovery, or somewhere in between — this work meets you there. I'd love to talk.
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Body image therapy
Body image distress and eating disorder history are rarely separate stories — but they're not the same story. If the complicated part is primarily how you feel about how your body looks, rather than the relationship with food itself, body image therapy may be the right frame.
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Therapy for anxiety
Anxiety and eating disorders share deep roots — the need for control, the relentlessness, the way food rules can function as anxiety management. If both are present, this practice holds them together.
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Therapy for depression
Depression and eating disorders often coexist and reinforce each other. If the flatness or the heaviness is part of the picture alongside food, that's worth bringing to the work.