Whether you’re a dietitian, therapist, physician, nurse practitioner, or another healthcare professional, eating disorders can be some of the most challenging conditions to treat.
You probably feel overwhelmed with:
- Knowing how to keep your patient recovering from an eating disorder clinically safe
- Developing therapeutic skills that will help you connect with your patients with eating disorders
- Knowing when to refer a patient to a higher level of care
- Understanding and managing the clinical symptoms of an eating disorder
- Learning to work with the healthcare team to support your patient with an eating disorder
- Knowing how to bill insurance for eating disorder clients and which services are typically covered
If this sounds like you- let’s chat!
Working With Someone Under The Influence of an ED
Let’s face it… getting your first eating disorder client can feel scary as hell.
The person sitting across from you is likely:
- Terrified, frustrated, and grieving a loss of identity
- Resistant to seeking care or being forced to see you (think our teens)
- Full of doubt as to whether recovery is even possible
- Deciding what they will and won’t tell you to keep their habits safe
- In denial that they’re sick enough to be there
- Have a hard time telling you what is actually happening
- Doesn’t really trust you
- Scared to lose their eating disorder while simultaneously terrified that they will fail at recovery
Eating disorder care involves a careful balance of slowly building trust with patients while simultaneously managing the clinical symptoms of an urgent life-threatening condition.
Working with someone with an eating disorder often comes with lots of tears and difficult emotions, particularly on the first visit. Some of these emotions can be experienced by both the provider and the patient.
Here’s What No one Tells you…
You’re already working with eating disorders, you just might not be trained to see them. This is why a basic understanding of the clinical and psychological symptoms of eating disorders is critical for every medical provider.
Even though eating disorders are about the food, they are not about food at all. This dichotomy can start to make every interaction start to feel clear as mud for both the provider and patient if you’re not trained to facilitate an effective intervention.
Helping someone heal from an eating disorder is one part art, and one part science. And it is absolutely critical you go beyond the science to help someone sustain a long and lasting recovery.
You don’t have to figure it out alone.
A single consultation can help you feel more confident managing complex cases, recognizing red flags, collaborating with treatment teams, and supporting recovery safely.
We Can Work Through Things Like:
✔ Is my patient medically safe to remain outpatient?
✔ When should I recommend a higher level of care?
✔ How do I approach meal plans without increasing resistance?
✔ What labs should I monitor?
✔ How do I navigate difficult conversations?
✔ Insurance billing questions
✔ Treatment planning
✔ Working with parents and caregivers
✔ Building rapport with resistant clients
Let’s Talk Through It
Whether you’re looking for guidance on a difficult case or simply want to feel more confident working with eating disorders, I’d be happy to help.
Consultations can include:
✔ Case review
✔ Treatment planning
✔ Clinical decision making
✔ Medical nutrition therapy
✔ Higher level of care decisions
✔ Family dynamics
✔ Insurance questions
And no, no one is going to be looking over your notes or reviewing a video of you in session (unless you want me too and have permission from your clients of course). Personally this is what I used to think every time.I heard the word supervision which steered me away from it for longer than i’d like to admit! This consultation is just designed to get the support you need, when you need it. To help you feel completely comfortable and confident when a person has an eating disorder on board.
Please note, this supervision does not count towards the supervision required for the Iaedp credential. In full transparency, i’m also NOT a CEDRD (and never plan to be). I’m just a dietitian that’s dedicated my entire career to learning about and treating eating disorders with over a decade in experience.