Outpatient Eating Disorder Treatment

We believe in the model of attuned eating and hold it as a goal for our clients. The aim of attuned eating is to learn to trust that our bodies work! This means trusting that our bodies know what to do with the foods we put in it, that our bodies will tell us when we’re hungry and when we’re full, and that we can distinguish between our physical and emotional feelings. Intuitive eating also aims to separate self-worth from diet and weight, allowing us to make peace with food and our bodies. We recognize that intuitive eating does not come easily to many of us and can even be quite frightening to consider – this is why we take care to meet each client where they are in this journey and work at a pace that is appropriate for each person.ption or absorption of food and that significantly impairs physical health or psychosocial functioning. (DSM V, p. 329)

A meal plan is a document created by each client and their dietitian that depicts the client’s daily intake requirements. It includes breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and pm snack (if applicable). The dietitian assesses each client’s nutritional needs in conjunction with recovery goals and they create the meal plan together. It is common for the meal plan to change as a client progresses through treatment. The idea behind meal plans is to give clients, who have developed abnormal patterns of eating, a guide to retrain their bodies on what is “normal eating” in terms of quantity, variety, and frequency of meals. The ultimate goal is to move away from needing meal plans, but that clients can use the skills they have developed to eat in a more attuned manner.

This refers to eating choices that are distinct from disordered eating, such as vegetarianism, veganism, or choosing to eating locally-sourced foods, for example. Food values are an important part of each person’s general food choices, yet can become intermingled with disordered eating as well. We work to honor each person’s unique values while also paying special attention to how a food value could be part of one’s eating disorder

Yes. Opal intake and nutrition teams together assess these needs on a case-by-case basis. Typically, we ask for medical documentation of food allergies before approving accommodations in a meal plan. Regarding food values, clients can begin treatment with their food values honored and will further discuss in individual nutrition sessions. Clients will work to more clearly understand how these food values may/may not serve eating disorder recovery.

We have found that for the best care, clients at the PHP and IOP level will see an Opal therapist and dietitian, we take great care to communicate and collaborate with those clinicians who have referred their clients to us. 

The simple premise that the best way to improve health is to honor your body. It supports people in adopting health habits for the sake of health and well-being (rather than weight control)

Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO-DBT) is a new treatment that targets over-controlled behavior. It has been used to treat some of the rigid responses and emotional inhibition thought to underlie many treatment-resistant conditions. RO-DBT has been informed by over 20 years of clinical and experimental research, and is a talk therapy that involves weekly individual and group sessions.  The RO-DBT treatment typically involves a 1-hour weekly individual session and a 2.5-hour weekly group session.
Opal offers this in Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient Program.

While Opal is not affiliated with a specific religion or spiritual practice, we do invite clients to incorporate their own traditions and practices into their recovery and help to facilitate that part of their experience.