What Will We Do In Therapy?

Intake Assessment

We will start with a full intake assessment where we will look at the specific eating disorder behaviors that are plaguing you. We will explore your treatment history as well as modalities that you’ve tried and tested. Then we will discuss an assessment and the next step for you to take on your journey to recovery.

Co-Morbid Diagnosis

We spend just as much time during the Intake assessment, assessing any other symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma, etc. that afflict you and contribute to using eating disorder behaviors to cope as well as a complete personal history. Finally, we come up with a treatment plan that highlights your hopes for yourself, your unique strengths, and your immediate and long-term goals.

In Session

We will often do process work in session so that you can use therapy as a safe place to reveal your inner turmoil and brainstorm alternative ways to handle your present conflicts. I use a non-traditional approach by utilizing recovery-based books, intervention based worksheets, art therapy and desensitization exercises in sessions for increased insights.

Family Involvement

An eating disorder affects the entire family. If you are still living at home or your family is still a part of your life on a regular basis, I include family members in occasional therapy sessions to identify hidden supports, explore how family dynamics can exacerbate symptoms, and to observe how the family interacts to better understand you as an individual.

If you are differentiated from your family, we often utilize process based talk therapy to explore what values, beliefs, and core concepts you have developed from your family of origin. This can help us identify maladaptive beliefs that contribute to your way of interacting with the world.

If you are a teen seeking treatment, please see the FAQ page regarding the admission process for adolescents.

Talk Therapy

We offer comfortable, serene rooms with various seating options to accommodate individuals or families for traditional psychotherapy.

Our array of books, workbooks, and worksheets allow us to offer a variety of resources to our clients in session or to utilize in between sessions.

What Does Therapy Look Like?

Art Therapy

Our custom creative therapy space allows us to offer expressive art therapies, sand tray therapy, and visualization of the internal parts that impact our decision making and how we interact with the world (Internal Family Systems) as aids to the healing journey.

This room is used in conjunction with therapy sessions as the client desires, with both directive prompts from the therapist as well as client directed creative expression.

Therapy Modalities

Eating disorders are multi-faceted illnesses that require a variety of interventions and modalities to appropriately treat. Our approach takes in proven modalities and turns them into concrete therapies, goals and interventions in order for the client to feel hopeful, empowered and a part of the journey.

Treatment modalities we incorporate:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Intuitive Eating
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Family Systems Therapy
Internal Family Systems
Embodied Recovery
Art Therapy

Our main goal is to identify what maladaptive beliefs, family dynamics and thought processes that contribute to the eating disorder and attempt to lead to a life that is not congruent with your values.

Nutrition Therapy

Our societies messages about food are binary: foods are good or bad, scary or healthy, to be enjoyed or avoided. Our society also believes health has a certain look and size, which leads to body shame and a conflicted relationship with food and movement. At Monarch Rising, we believe that ALL bodies are worthy, beautiful, and deserving of food freedom.

Our approach is to help each client reconnect with their hunger and fullness cues, learn what nourishing their body means for them, learn to enjoy all foods in a way that includes pleasure and nutrition, and TRUSTS their body for it's beautiful complexities. Our approaches are evidence based and we pull from the following scientific, research based body trust modalities:

Intuitive Eating - https://www.intuitiveeating.org
Body Trust by Be Nourished - https://benourished.org
Health At Every Size - https://haescommunity.com

Our main goal is to help you trust and nourish your body without the shame and confusion taught to us by diet culture. For more on what is diet culture, check out this article by our founder, Rachel Coleman, LMFT: https://mirror-mirror.org/recovery/10-ways-to-rebel-against-diet-culture