HAES-Aligned Eating Disorder Treatment Chicago
As eating disorder therapists, we provide HAES-aligned, weight-inclusive eating disorder treatment in Chicago (Loop), grounded in research and compassion. Our approach is anti-diet and evidence-based. We help you build a more peaceful relationship with food and your body — without shame, restriction, or rigid rules.
Our goal is simple: food should nourish you and be enjoyed. It should not control your thoughts, your mood, or your self-worth.
We begin by helping you stabilize eating patterns and reduce harmful behaviors. At the same time, we teach practical tools to manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions. This foundation creates safety and structure in early recovery.
As part of our weight-inclusive eating disorder treatment, we collaborate with our own in-house Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. Your dietitian will help you create a personalized nutrition plan that supports healing while honoring your values.
Once eating behaviors feel more stable, we move deeper. Together, we explore the underlying issues that may be maintaining the eating disorder — such as perfectionism, trauma, anxiety, or body image distress. Addressing these root causes reduces the risk of relapse and supports long-term recovery.
Our anti-diet eating disorder therapy in Chicago is rooted in Health at Every Size® (HAES®) principles. We believe bodies are not problems to be fixed. Recovery is about reclaiming your life, not shrinking yourself.
Healing is possible. And you do not have to do it alone.
Evidenced Based Therapeutic Approach
As therapists, our main objective is to helping clients live a value-congruent life, while accepting difficult realities. As stressors and problems seem to pile up, people often approach therapy feeling defeated or frustrated. Together, we will work on identifying and moving toward your goals. Based on Behavioral and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles, we develop an individualized approach for each client. Within a Health at Every Size (HAES) framework, we help you find your inner intuitive eater. Through this process, you can learn to accept your body, trust that your body knows what it needs, and nourish yourself in a loving and compassionate way.
We believe in being straightforward with you and demystifying the therapeutic process. We are active therapists and will likely provide you with direct feedback and things to work on outside of session.
Integrating Health at Every Size and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
So much of our struggles are rooted in trying to deny or escape who we are and what we feel. We work to help our clients accept themselves and their emotions, identify and challenge self-destructive thoughts and behavioral patterns, and develop more adaptive ways of coping. Research shows that working toward mindfulness to minimize these judgments and self-destructive behaviors leads to more regulated emotions and behaviors. It is only through mindfulness – true acceptance of where we are in this moment – that we are led toward change. We work with clients to help them re-frame their thinking about themselves and their lives. Along with this, we help clients develop effective ways of managing difficult emotions.
As eating disorders therapists, we spend a lot of time thinking about people’s relationship with their bodies. Research demonstrates that working toward body acceptance is the key to happiness and good health. At Birch Tree Psychotherapy, we embrace HAES and Intuitive Eating as the most effective models for helping people repair their relationships with themselves and with food.
A Focus on Wellness
Our therapists incorporate care for your body into each treatment plan. We will constantly think about your needs hierarchy and prioritize physical well-being before we can work on other goals. Through wellness, you can move toward breaking the cycle of self-loathing that keeps you in unhealthy patterns. We encourage clients to care for and nourish their bodies and minds in ways that promote healing and self-acceptance. In collaboration with other treatment providers – including physicians, dietitians, psychiatrists, or alternative care providers – we provide holistic treatment that emphasizes mind-body care and connection.
Family Work
Often times, emotional problems become family problems. For many clients, family involvement is essential to therapeutic success. Family connections can be instrumental in promoting or hindering recovery. We work to help the family provide a supportive environment for recovery We offer family therapy sessions for both adult and youth clients. We work together to decide what level of family involvement is appropriate for your situation.