Teen Eating Disorder Group (Ages 13-17):

This is an open group which focuses on addressing the core issues related to the eating disorder. Individuals will be able to develop a better understanding of the self, body, and overall health being a teen in our society by developing goals, learning self care, relationship skills, body image, family issues, societal influences, and life with “ED” during the teenage years. The group acts as a safe place for self discovery, support and an environment that helps start and sustain the path to recovery. This group is for young women who are wanting to recover from anorexia and bulimia.

Full of Ourselves (FOO) Group:

Full of Ourselves (formerly known as Girl Talk) is an upbeat prevention program created by some of the best in the field of prevention of eating disorders and body disturbances including obesity prevention. It is an educational program aimed to sustain girls in their mental, physical and social health. As a primary prevention program, FOO’s goal is to decrease the vulnerability to develop body preoccupation, eating disorders and obesity. Additionally, FOO implements many of the recent recommendations from the Institute of Medicine on how to stem the growing obesity problem. The program targets a mixture of both a healthy and unhealthy population of girls. However, no one needs to be at risk for an eating disorder to participate. The goal is to target all girls so that the preoccupation with negative body image is something that they do not battle with as they go through high school and college.

Compulsive Overeating Group:

The Compulsive Overeating Group is for both teens and adults struggling with overeating or binging behaviors. The group will be focused on learning how to eat and move consciously. Discussions will be about topics such as self-esteem, body image, media, familial pressures, and the need to want to fit in at school, work, or at home. The group will include role-playing, yoga, healthy eating and living, assertiveness skills, conflict resolution and education about balanced lifestyles.

IOP Mindfulness Group:

The Mindfulness group involves learning how to relax and be more present in one's body, while becoming mindful (paying attention without judgment) to one's bodily sensations, emotions and thoughts. Participants develop the ability to calm and center themselves and increase their awareness of and connection to their body, emotions, mind and spirit. This all facilitates deep healing.

Aftercare Group:

The Aftercare group is available for people stepping out of the IOP level of care. A requirement is for the individual to be symptom free for 3 months. Goals of this group are more self discovery, life adjustment without ED and personal and professional journeys.

Adult Eating Disorder Group (Ages 18 and above)

This is an adult open group which addresses the core issues of an eating disorder, as well as provides a safe environment for those to find peace and hope in recovery. This group will address issues pertaining to relationships, family, self care, body image, spirituality, values, and address the role “ED” has played in their life. The group will have a strong cognitive therapy focus with an emphasis in learning skills to increase healthy behaviors.

IOP Acceptance-Commitment-Therapy (ACT):

The ACT group is held every other Thursday in IOP program. The group is a mindfulness based behavior therapy for individuals struggling with a range of issues including eating disorders and body image. The focus of the group is to help individuals accept their thoughts and feelings, while still being able to live meaningful and fulfilling lives. The group will also help you make healthier choices (based on your values and beliefs), and commit to those choices by taking effective action. These are the steps necessary for you to live a valued life that you deserve to have. The group will consist of discussions and interactive exercises. Those in this group need to buy the book The Anorexia Workbook: How to accept yourself, heal your suffering, and reclaim your life by Michelle Heffner and Georg Eifert. The book is available for purchase at Healthy Within.

IOP Goals and Dreams Group:

The Goals and Dreams group is held every Monday in the IOP program. During this group the individual reviews his or her goals from the week before and discusses any obstacles, challenges, or successes of that goal. After reviewing the goals from the past week the individual then comes up with new goals for the following week. Goals are set for the following headings: nutrition, behavioral, relationship, body image, medical, and movement. After each goal is set the individuals discuss ways in which they can make each goal more attainable as well as finding ways they can help themselves follow through with keeping each goal in mind throughout the week.

IOP Body Image Group:

The Body Image group is held every Monday in the IOP program. The group focuses on becoming more aware of our bodies, how one feels in his or her body, what has affected his or her body, what messages have been sent to our bodies, and how can we learn to become more accepting of our bodies. This group uses art therapy in order to express the emotions, sensations, and thoughts being felt within one’s body. The group members are also encouraged to become activists against the negative exposure and influences the media plays in our body image.

IOP Multi-Family Group:

Multi-Family group is held every Tuesday in the IOP program. The group is open to all group members’ parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and anyone else who is supporting the individual with the eating disorder. This group allows family members to gain a better understanding of the eating disorder and what the individual is going through, as well as relay what they are going through at this time and what they need. This group provides a safe place for family members to confront one another with any current or past struggles they are going through and act as a support to other group members.

IOP Process Group:

This group is held every Thursday in the IOP program. Process group allows the individual to sort out any challenges they have encountered throughout the week, whether it be at home or in other groups. It is an opportunity for the individual to provide feedback to other members, relate to other group members struggles, and work through their own struggles by venting and sorting out feelings and thoughts. Several emotions come up in the other groups throughout the week and this is an important time for the individual to be able to have a safe place to talk about those thoughts and emotions.

Free ANAD Eating Disorder Support Group:

This group is held every Friday night from 5:30pm-6:30 p.m. You do not need to call ahead to attend these groups, they are offered free of charge and we welcome you to the support and encouragement offered here at Healthy Within. As the support group is professionally facilitated, please be assured that the group is conducted in a safe, supportive and professional manner. Our goal is to minimize competitiveness and have the meeting be a place of encouragement, hope and support - not a "triggering" environment for you. We tend to have strict guidelines about not talking about numbers and "tricks.”

Free Family and Friends ANAD Eating Disorder Support Group:

This group is held every Thursday night from 7:00pm -8:00 p.m. You do not need to call ahead to attend these groups, they are offered free of charge and we welcome you to the support and encouragement offered here at Healthy Within. As the support group is professionally facilitated, please be assured that the group is conducted in a safe, supportive and professional manner. Our goal is to minimize competitiveness and have the meeting be a place of encouragement, hope and support.

Additional Treatment Components Offered by Healthy Within:

Family Therapy:

Family Therapy: Dr. Kakaiya is available for Family Therapy for any persons wanting family therapy. She is highly qualified to treat families and presents at national conferences on the topic of family therapy for eating disorders. Please call Dr. Kakaiya for family sessions and specify that you are interested in family therapy.

Individual Therapy:

Individual Therapy Sessions: Individual therapy sessions are available with the Program Director, Kourtney Klepfer, MSW or Danielle Beck-Ellsworth, MA.

Individual Psychotherapy: We have caring, compassionate, warm, psychotherapists that are trained to treat the following conditions:

• Adjusting to this culture for new immigrants
• Cross Cultural Psychotherapy
• Body Image Disturbances
• Detoxing from the vicious cycle of dieting
• Adjusting to Middle School for young girls
• Achieving balance and harmony in life
• Learning stress management skills
• Family Therapy focusing on improving relationships within the family
• Couples Therapy
• Depression, Trauma, Anxiety, Abuse Issues
• Women's Issues

Description of IOP program:

Healthy Within provides a quality Intensive Outpatient Eating Disorder Program.. Our private offices make the environment cozy, warm and comfortable in order to enable moving away from the "disease" model. We treat anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder (compulsive eating), emotional eating and all types of disconnection form our bodies. We are a non-hospital environment. We have an environment that is non-controlling and extremely conducive to motivation for change. Our goal is to empower each person to move to their "best" self and thereby learning new ways to cope with stress, anxiety and depression. All our groups and sessions are geared to treating the underlying causes and help facilitate recovery. Group therapy has been validated by research to be the most effective form of treatment for Eating Disorders. We nurture the whole family into the recovery process since each person in the family is significantly impacted by the eating disorder. We do not isolate the person from the family, and our treatment model is very inclusive.

Our small group environment enables change in a very safe, gentle way. At any given time the maximum number of attendees we have in the program are seven to eight. The Healthy Within program is the most seasoned care you will receive. The diversity of our team includes Dr. Kakaiya, our Psychologist, therapists, an acupuncturist and a yoga instructor. Our goal is to teach the participants in our program how to overcome self-destructive patterns of being, and to be empowered to embrace a "voice." We meet the individual where they are at and together we all create a team which includes the patient as well.

We have successfully treated patients with the most severe of illnesses to those that may have just started the eating disorder 2 months prior. We treat adult women and men as well as very young pre-teens to all ages of teens. Our treatment is modified especially for your care and we do not conduct "cookie-cutter" therapy!

New clients can contact Kourtney Klepfer MSW at 858-622-0221 ext. 1.