Eating Disorder Therapy

Woman battling an eating disorder looks at herself in the mirror

Who is Eating Disorder Therapy For?

Our Eating Disorder Therapy services are designed for individuals in New York who are navigating ongoing recovery. Whether you're stepping down from a higher level of care (HLOC) or exploring therapy for the first time, we're here to support you. You don’t need to have a prior diagnosis to seek help—if you have noticed a fixation on food, body image, numbers, or a desire for control in these areas, you deserve support. We’d be honored to help.

We work with clients who are struggling with disordered eating or full-blown eating disorders. If you're curious about diving into your relationship with food, body, and exercise, you're someone we want to help. We also specialize in working with individuals who think, "My struggle isn’t bad enough," or those who have been labeled as “treatment-resistant.”

Eating disorders are dangerous mental illnesses with serious physical consequences. We take the health and safety of our clients very seriously. While we’re not afraid of confronting eating disorder behaviors while operating from a harm-reduction standpoint, we recognize the inherent risks and work closely with registered dietitians and medical doctors to create a collaborative care team for your recovery.

We specialize in working all genders and people from all cultural backgrounds, including LGBTQ+ individuals. Our NYC eating disorder therapist’s approach is culturally competent, body-inclusive, and sex-positive.

Common Eating Disorder Symptoms Include:

*Please note: This list is not exhaustive. Every individual battling disordered eating will have unique struggles and can cycle through various eating disorder behaviors at different times in their lives. Eating disorders do not discriminate — any person of any size, gender, race or age can battle any eating disorder.

  • Restricting food intake (calorie intake, food groups, or specific foods)

  • Excessive exercise, compulsive and/or compensatory exercise

  • Purging via vomiting, diuretics, laxatives, diet teas and/or supplements

  • Bingeing or consuming large amounts of food in a short time frame

  • Feelings of being out of control with food or behaviors

  • Fear of gaining weight

  • Perceiving body to be larger than it is

  • Intense feelings of guilt or shame during or after eating

  • Seemingly nonstop thoughts about food, what to eat, when to eat it, how to compensate for eating, etc.

  • Chronic dieting

  • Rapid change in weight

  • Obsession with eating only “clean” foods

  • GI upset

  • Cold intolerance

  • Difficulty concentrating

  • Distress around eating in public or with other people

  • Aversion to food due to lack of interest, sensory issues and/or fear of aversive consequences

A woman who is looking for eating disorder treatment in NYC is sitting at a cafe table.

Types of Eating Disorders LEL Therapy Treats:

  • Anorexia and “Atypical” Anorexia

  • Bulimia Nervosa

  • Binge Eating Disorder

  • Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders (OSFED)

  • Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)

  • Body Dysmorphic Disorder

  • Disordered Eating

  • Orthorexia

  • Body Image Issues

  • Exercise Disorders

To sum it up, at NYC’s virtual LEL Therapy Practice, we treat all eating disorders. We see them all as equally valid and deserving of support.

Are you questioning if you should seek help for
disordered eating, body image issues or disordered exercise?

Here’s the deal — If you’re questioning whether your relationship with food, your body, or exercise is healthy, it’s time to explore eating disorder treatment. When these aspects of your life start to impact your day-to-day functioning or you constantly feel like you need to change yourself, it’s a sign that seeking eating disorder therapy could help. You don’t need a formal eating disorder diagnosis to begin this journey—our team is here to support you in freeing yourself from these food and body challenges.

New York City-based LEL Therapy’s Approach to Eating Disorder Treatment:

  • Relational Eating Disorder Therapists

At LEL Therapy, we are relational therapists. This means we work to build genuine connections with our clients, bringing our authentic selves into the therapy room. Our approach is modern and human-centered—far from the traditional "blank slate therapist" approach. You won’t find worksheets here (unless you really want them). Instead, we offer personalized, evidence-based eating disorder treatment tailored to your unique needs.

  • Developing a Collaborative Eating Disorder Care Team

We understand how hard it can be to be asked to pause your life for eating disorder treatment. Our eating disorder therapists will do our best to work with your current lifestyle and help you stay present and engaged—whether you’re busy with your career, education, or being a parent. With this in mind, we will help you develop a care team comprised of a Registered Dietitian and a Medical Doctor, who will help oversee your food and physical health. However, if we’ve helped you create a care team and are not seeing the progress necessary to ensure your safety, we may need to refer out. Should this be necessary, we will collaborate with you and guide you through the process until you have secured the appropriate care.

  • Providing Evidence-Based Eating Disorder Treatments through a Harm-Reduction Lens

Eating disorders are complex, and recovery is challenging. We don’t expect perfection from our clients because we know there’s no such thing as a perfect eating disorder recovery. Operating from a harm-reduction framework, we work with you using a combination of Mindfulness-CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), and Narrative Therapy. These evidence-based practices equip you with tools as we work to explore the deeper origins of your disordered eating. Through narrative therapy, we will help you challenge harmful narratives that have shaped your core beliefs about yourself, your body, and your worth.

  • Offering Values-Based Eating Disorder Therapy

Our goal is to help you live through your own values, not those imposed by our diet-culture ridden and thin-obsessed society. This process involves deconstructing societal norms and identifying and embracing your personal values. This process ultimately leads to kinder self-treatment.

Research indicates that two-thirds of individuals with eating disorders have experienced trauma. Our New York therapists specialize in treating trauma—from childhood trauma and single-incident PTSD to complex PTSD—we are committed to helping you through both your eating disorder and trauma recovery. By addressing the whole person, we empower you to connect with the healthiest, happiest version of yourself.

  • Encouraging Intuitive Eating in Eating Disorder Recovery

While we will collaborate with and trust your registered dietitian with the nutrition aspect of recovery, we understand and support the implementation of the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating for eating disorder recovery. We believe Intuitive Eating can help you find balance in your relationship with food as you step away from obsessive thoughts about food and body.

  • Exploring Movement in Eating Disorder Recovery

When it comes to movement, we will work with you to find ways to move joyfully, as you work to step away from excessive movement behaviors that can act as a form of self-harm. We’re here to support you in caring for yourself better and treating yourself and your body with the kindness you deserve. Whatever your recovery process looks like, we’ll walk with you every step of the way—you don’t have to go at it alone.

Do I have to love my body to be in eating disorder recovery?

Loving yourself wholly is an ongoing journey, and self-compassion is a critical piece of the work. Loving your body in a society that profits off of self-doubt is challenging at best. We don’t believe you need to love your body to enter meaningful eating disorder recovery. However, we believe you can work to have a more peaceful and trusting relationship with your body. Part of that work is done through rejecting diet culture and unattainable societal beauty norms. Our eating disorder therapists are here to help you on that journey.

We are aware that body image work is easiest for those living in thin, white, cis-gendered, abled bodies. We are body inclusive therapists, which means we recognize that body image work is more challenging for people of size, people of color, disabled individuals, and trans and nonbinary folks. We will not sugar coat your real-life experiences through dismissive body positive rhetoric. We are equipped to help you explore your grief around your body narrative and help you find a more peaceful, liberated relationship with your body.

What to Expect During Virtual Eating Disorder Therapy:

In our sessions, we toggle between your past and present, helping you gain insights into your current behaviors and beliefs. By understanding your past, we can work on your present actions and trajectories. We provide tools and techniques tailored to where you are in your journey, helping you address your current challenges while understanding the deeper roots of your behaviors. Depending on individual client needs, we can offer support through food exposures and meal support during session.

Why Choose LEL Therapy?

At LEL Therapy, our team includes eating disorder therapists with experience working with folks with eating disorders in higher levels of care (HLOC). We’re skilled in working with individuals at varying stages of recovery. We acknowledge our privilege and recognize that while we are experts in this field, you are the expert on you.

We’re not here to dictate how you should approach your recovery. Instead, we bring our own experiences into the therapy room, offering a human-centered approach. We are dedicated to supporting you on your journey to recovery.

We stand out by bringing a unique, authentic lens to our work. Our therapists have personally experienced many of the same struggles you face, and they approach therapy with openness, lightness, humor, and warmth. We create a safe space where you feel held and supported in your journey. Our therapists are loyal, sweet, kind, hardworking, smart, and fun—they love to bring their zest for life into their practice.

Experience eating disorder therapy with someone who truly gets it and is dedicated to helping you thrive.

LEL Therapists | Relational Therapists in NYC

We are therapists who are humans and humans who are therapists.

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We are therapists who are humans and humans who are therapists. ✦

Other Services Offered:

In addition to specializing in eating disorders and food / body image issues, NYC’s LEL Therapy offers relationship therapy, whether that be couples therapy, navigating platonic relationships or familial relationships. We specialize in trauma therapy. And we treat anxiety and general mental health conditions. We would love to help you on your mental health journey. Reach out for a free consultation today!