Eating Disorder & Body Image Therapy in Massachusetts

Make more room for life beyond food and body image.

Black adult woman enjoying a hamburger
Schedule Free Consult

DISORDERED EATING THERAPY

You don’t have to wait until things feel worse.

Maybe you've spent years following food rules, tracking what you eat, or feeling like food takes up more mental space than you'd like. Or maybe you're just beginning to wonder whether your relationship with food is working for you.

Disordered eating can show up alongside anxiety, perfectionism, changes in identity, or difficult life transitions. Sometimes food and exercise become ways of coping with things that feel overwhelming or outside our control.

At Sandstone, we approach these patterns with curiosity rather than judgment, helping you understand what's happening and build a more flexible relationship with food.

What could a different relationship with food look like?

✓ Eating without rigid food rules

✓ Trusting your cravings, hunger or fullness cues

✓ Enjoying restaurants and meals with others

✓ Spending less time thinking about food

✓ Trying foods without guilt or compensation

✓ More mental space for things beyond food

DISORDERED EXERCISE & MOVEMENT

When movement starts to feel like another rule.

Exercise can be a meaningful part of life. But when rest brings guilt, movement feels compulsory, or workouts become tied to earning food, it's worth exploring what's happening underneath.

For athletes and high performers, the pressure to train, improve, or push through discomfort can make it especially difficult to recognize when something has shifted. You might notice obsessive thoughts about movement, difficulty resting, or a sense that exercise has to be uncomfortable to “count.” Some people begin avoiding gyms or movement spaces altogether due to comparison or fear of judgment.

Therapy can help you:

✓ Build more flexibility around movement

✓ Reconnect with what you actually enjoy

✓ Rest without feeling like you've failed

✓ Separate exercise from food rules and body expectations

Body Image Therapy

Your relationship with your body can get better.

Maybe you spend more time than you'd like thinking about your appearance, comparing yourself to others, or avoiding things because of how you feel about your body. Even when you recognize the influence of diet culture or anti-fat bias, it can be hard to quiet that internal criticism.

Body image therapy isn't about forcing yourself to love how you look. It's about challenging the messages you've absorbed, treating yourself with more compassion, and making room for a life that isn't dictated by how you feel about your body.

What might that look like?

  • Understanding and challenging internalized anti-fat bias

  • Participating in activities you've been avoiding

  • Navigating body changes with more flexibility

  • Setting boundaries around diet and body talk

  • Spending less time monitoring or criticizing your appearance

Questions you might have:

Wondering whether therapy is right for you or what getting started looks like? Here are a few things people often ask.

  • It’s something we could figure out together. We see folks who are just starting to wonder if something isn’t working with food or exercise all the way to people who have been working on healing from their eating disorder for years. We can explain all the different ways eating disorders show up and determine together whether that might be going on for you.

    Quick note about diagnoses: A diagnosis can help with self-understanding and it’s required for insurance purposes, but our treatment approach doesn’t change whether you have disordered eating or an eating disorder.

  • Many people wonder whether their eating concerns are “serious enough” to justify therapy, especially if they think they don’t “look” like they have an eating disorder or able to keep things mostly under control.

    Disordered eating doesn’t have any type of look, need to meet a specific diagnosis ,or reach a crisis point to be worth support.

    Therapy can be helpful if food, exercise, or body thoughts take up more mental space than you want, interfere with your relationship with yourself or others, or feel hard to change on your own.

    You don’t need to be certain that therapy is the right step before reaching out. A brief phone consult call can help you think through whether support at this point would be useful.

  • First, we try to understand when and how behaviors started to develop. We’ll look at the impact of diet culture, family/friends/cultural influences, and explore any moments that changed how you felt about your body, exercise or food. We will figure out what’s keeping you stuck now and slowly work towards changing how you nourish and treat your body.

    You can read more about therapy approaches we incorporate here.

  • Yes. Body image work often stands on its own. You can work toward feeling more neutral, respectful, or at ease in your body without focusing heavily on food behaviors.

  • You can contact us here to schedule a free consult. We’ll chat for about 15 minutes about your therapy needs and ensure we’re a good fit before scheduling.