ARFID Treatment

ARFID Therapy
ARFID Nutrition Counseling

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

Extreme picky eating, anxiety, and food control have taken over your life.

Your picky eating habits make living life quite challenging, especially when it comes to the social parts. Your anxiety and fear around food, the sensory experiences of eating, and/or your disinterest in food seems to rule your day. You are feeling alone, tense, and exhausted by the constant thoughts and stresses related to food and eating.

At Austin Center for Eating Disorders (ACED), we understand how frustrated and tired you are. Eating disorders can be invisible illnesses that thrive in secrecy and shame.

ARFID, or any type of restrictive eating issue, can make you feel both safe and out-of-control, and occurs across all body sizes.

What is ARFID?

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), commonly known as as “extreme picky eating,” is an eating disorder impacting thousands of individuals, both children and adults. The meaning of “fear food” in people with ARFID is different from folks with anorexia nervosa or bulimia. For individuals with ARFID, the fear often comes from one or more of the following:

  • knowing you must eat, when you have no interest in eating,

  • fearing the texture or temperature, etc. might not be what you like,

  • fear of vomiting, nausea, or choking, or becoming ill.

In general, you feel great distress when faced with eating a new, unsafe, or unfamiliar food.

 

We’re Here to Help

Schedule a free, 15-20 min phone consultation to ask questions & see if the ACED team is a good fit for you. If desired, we will pair you with your dream team.

 

ARFID

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

Signs & Symptoms

    1. Sensory Avoidance: folks with sensory avoidance have issues with food tastes, textures, temperature and smells.

    2. Lack of interest: people have a genuine lack of interest in food and the process of eating. They also seem to feel full more quickly than others.

    3. Fear of Aversive Consequences: folks that have a deep fear of illness, choking, nausea and/or allergic reaction

    • You don’t eat enough food

    • You can’t increase variety in the foods that you eat

    • You limit the amount and/or types of food consumed

    • For you, this is not about body image

    • Dramatic restriction in types or amount of food eaten

    • Fear of novel foods or eating experiences

    • You have a short list of acceptable foods

    • You sometimes have constipation, abdominal pain, cold intolerance, lethargy, and/or excess energy

    • Weight loss

    • You have consistent, vague gastrointestinal issues, like having an upset stomach, feeling full, etc., around mealtimes that have no known cause

    • Stomach cramps

    • Menstrual irregularities

    • Difficulties concentrating

    • Dizziness

    • Sleep problems

    • Dry and brittle nails

    • Impaired immune functioning

    • Your range of preferred foods is limited, and has become narrower over time (picky eating that worsens progressively)

    • You can only eat certain types, colors, or textures of food

    • High anxiety or panic associated with fear foods

    • Certain food textures freak you out

    • People in your life have to accommodate your food rules

    • Food limitations get in the way of normal social behaviors and activities

    • You are highly sensitive to texture, color, density, temperature, taste, shape, smell, or specific content of different foods

    • These sensitivities provoke distress or fear

    • You are aware that your relationship with food is unique and this is isolating

    • You process sensory information related to food differently (e.g., you feel the energy or unique quality of food that other people don’t)

 

ARFID is a complex issue

Understanding why you are stuck in the pattern of restriction and over-control with food is a first step towards reclaiming your life. Eating disorders are about so much more than the the food rules that accompany them.

ARFID does not have one root cause; instead, researchers demonstrate a variety of potential contributing factors, such as biological, psychosocial, and environmental influences. A person who is already predisposed to ARFID due to biological or genetics can be triggered to develop the eating disorder by difficult situations, such as a big life change or traumatic event.

Your eating disorder can feel like your best friend: the one thing you can depend on for comfort, safety, or structure. Despite having this awareness, you are here because you’re ready to take the next step in your eating disorder recovery, to get back to living your life.

Neurodivergence is commonly associated with ARFID

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and ADHD or ADD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), among other sensory processing diagnoses, are often seen alongside ARFID. In Autism and developmental disabilities, an individual’s relationship with their body and senses are already quite heightened. This reflects the uniqueness of each person’s neurological functioning, genetics, history, and lived experiences.

The ACED clinicians are highly skilled and trained to work with the full spectrum of ARFID presentations and neurodivergence. If you or your loved one’s symptoms do not match the typical diagnoses, don’t worry, this is quite common. We are all different! Each client requires and will receive a personalized treatment plan that is highly specific to their own needs and goals.

 

Therapy for ARFID & Neurodivergence

Nutrition Counseling for ARFID & Neurodivergence

Let Us Help

With the help of a skilled, specialized therapist and/or dietitian, you can develop the insight and compassionate self-care needed to sustain the long journey of healing. We can provide the support you need:

  • You will receive a personalized treatment plan that is highly specific and aligned with your unique needs and goals

  • Tools and skills to manage and diminish eating disorder behaviors

  • Support in developing insight and understanding in your relationships with food and your body, and about yourself in general

  • Education about the science behind eating disorders and trauma

  • Help learning to regulate and soothe your intense emotions

  • Coping skills to advocate for yourself, especially when it comes to difficult relationships and diet culture

  • Nutrition support, education, and guidance

  • Tools and guidance in dismantling the restrictive food rules and obsessions that take over your life

  • A meal plan, if necessary, with a specialized Registered Dietitian

  • Inspiration, motivation, and accountability

  • So much love and compassion

  • See eating disorder treatment FAQs here





ARFID Treatment Can Repair Your Relationship With Food

Psychotherapy and Nutrition Therapy can be an extremely effective method to heal your relationship with food, and your troubling life circumstances associated with the eating disorder. Treatment for ARFID, although complex and commonly long-term, can guide you toward developing insight into your dysfunctional patterns of thinking and coping by giving you the skills and space necessary for desired change.

Therapy can give you a refuge, a safe place where you can be vulnerable, and trust that you will be unconditionally accepted, respected, and loved. Working at your own pace, you will find your voice, and learn the necessary tools, skills, and coping behaviors to manage big emotions and interrupt the cycles of disordered eating thoughts and behaviors.

We will help you to understand the science behind eating disorder behaviors if you want this info, and help you understand why these behaviors harm help you and harm you. You will explore your unique history of relationships, food and body image, and any trauma to help you figure out how your eating disorder helps you. You’ll need to know this information so that we can find better ways of getting you what you need without your eating disorder, when you’re ready to let go. We’ll also identify potential triggers for eating disorder behaviors to clarify your needs and help you cope ahead.


Our Collaborative Approach Toward Eating Disorder Recovery

Depending on your symptoms and needs, we will refer you to a registered dietician and/or therapist specializing in eating disorders to assist us on our journey together. Working with a specialized dietitian can be very important, and we will collaborate with one another to make sure that you are getting the best care possible.

We will also refer you to a specialized medical doctor to check in about your physical health. Again, we want to do our best make sure that you have everything you need to recover from your eating disorder.

Another option and recommendation we’ll likely provide is to join a therapy group that focuses on eating disorder recovery, so that you can connect with others who share your goals and struggles.


We utilize a number of therapeutic modalities to aid in your unique recovery process:

  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

  • Family Based Therapy (FBT)

  • Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT)

  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

  • Psychodynamic Theory

  • Feminist Theory

  • Health at Every Size® and Intuitive Eating

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Parts Work

  • Relational Cultural Theory

  • Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)

  • Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)



We Cherish Your Autonomy

You and you alone (given that you are an adult) are in charge of your body. You make decisions based upon what you believe is best for you. We will have plenty of recommendations (see above) to aid your recovery process, and if your symptoms are more severe, we may be more directive in nature. However, you are always free to agree or disagree, to come and go as you please, and do what you believe is the best thing for you.

We believe that you must make your own decisions to get the most out of therapy and nutrition counseling, and we support you in doing so. We cannot make you do anything, and you simply will not change unless you want to. We unconditionally accept you for who you are, right now.

You may be considering ARFID Treatment but still have some questions or concerns… 

  • Investing in your physical and mental health is one of the most valuable and important investments you could possibly make. ARFID typically involves immense feelings of loneliness, fear, and feeling like a failure, and along with unstoppable, repetitive behaviors and obsessions, all of this can destroy the quality of your everyday life. We realize that treatment is expensive, but the costs to your wellbeing if you don’t get help can be even greater. If you simply cannot afford treatment, please reach out anyway, and we can look at alternatives through other programs.

    If you are noticing worrisome physical symptoms, improving your relationship with food now might prevent costly medical treatments down the line. By engaging in treatment for ARFID, it’s possible to learn to better care for yourself, cope with challenges successfully without resorting to eating disorder behaviors, and create the life that you truly want to live. The benefits of seeking treatment are infinite and although it looks different for everyone, recovery is possible.

  • It can be incredibly scary to face the unknown or hidden parts of yourself, especially when it comes to your eating and safety behaviors.

    We want you to find better ways to deal with anxiety and/or emotional pain that don't cause you harm. Whatever your situation may be, we will proceed as slowly as needed, and we will be there for you as a loving support, a source of strength, and a compassionate voice of reason. Remember, treamtent is confidential and having to break confidentiality is extremely rare.

  • We understand that you're really busy. The demands of work or school, family, and life in general can make it seem as if there is no time left in the week just for you. However, restricting self care and time for yourself might play a role in maintaining your disorder.

    We encourage you to make time for yourself, and make your healing a priority in your week. Your mental health and the quality of your life matters so much. We can help you to develop healthy coping skills to deal with stress, and guide you toward creating a life that you can love on the best days, and easily tolerate on the worst.

 

Help Is Available for ARFID

We’re here for you. Schedule a complimentary phone consultation to ask all of your questions, and see if we might be a good fit for you. If you’re ready, we’ll match you with your dream team.