Center for Hope & Health, LLC

10/23/2025

Melissa is hosting a live webinar next week! Join her for an hour-long training all about body image and CBT-E. You'll walk through evidence-based strategies for identifying and intervening on maintaining behaviors such as body checking, avoidance, and comparison, as well as helping clients manage the experience of “feeling fat.” You will also explore how to use tools like the self-evaluation pie chart and behavioral experiments to reduce the over-evaluation of shape and weight and build healthier domains of self-worth. The best part? It's only $30 to attend!

Ready to register? Click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/live-webinar-cbt-e-body-image-module-with-melissa-harrison-lcsw-registration-1708596922389

Next week, join us for a live webinar led by Melissa Harrison, LPC, co-founder of Center for Hope & Health, LLC, all about body image and CBT-E. Body image disturbance is a core maintaining factor in many eating disorders, and a central focus of Enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT-E). You will learn evidence-based strategies for identifying and intervening on maintaining behaviors such as body checking, avoidance, and comparison, as well as helping clients manage the experience of “feeling fat.”

You’ll learn how to use tools like the self-evaluation pie chart and behavioral experiments to reduce the over-evaluation of shape and weight and build healthier domains of self-worth.

Who should attend: Clinicians and supervisors working with clients with body image concerns and eating disorders.

CEs available! | Cost: Members $20 | Non-members $30 | Students $15

🔗 Register now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/live-webinar-cbt-e-body-image-module-with-melissa-harrison-lcsw-registration-1708596922389

10/12/2025

It's the beginning of OCD awareness week! It's estimated that 200 million people live with OCD in the world - in the United States, there are as many people struggling with OCD to fill New York City. Still, people have so many misconceptions about OCD and what it means - that's why awareness weeks are so important. Sharing true facts, talking about evidence based treatment, and decreasing stigma helps people understand more and get the life-changing support they need as soon as possibile. Join us all week as we talk all things OCD - stay tuned!

10/10/2025

The world can feel heavy, but healing is possible, and hope isn’t just a feeling, it’s something you can build. Evidence-based therapies remind us that change starts with small, learnable skills that help us care for ourselves and each other.

Here’s to more access, more compassion, and more conversations that make mental health a shared priority. 💚

10/07/2025

This week, when opening up Instacart to do grocery shop, we noticed a new app feature: the calories were front and center on the ordering page - you truly can't miss them. It got us thinking about the ways that this kind of calorie prioritization can be problematic for people struggling with disordered eating.

Now, there are many stages of recovery, and our goal is always to help you feel confident choosing what to eat in any situation. That said, working toward mindful/intuitive eating is so much harder when there’s an overwhelming amount of nutritional information front-and-center, and it can give your eating disorder plenty of material to try to use against you. For someone in recovery, seeing the numbers immediately can pull them completely away from, “What do I want or need to eat right now?” and back to, "Is this "good," is it too much, I can't have that because it's so many calories," etc. making it harder to reconnect with their body's cues or decide what to eat at all. Not to mention that the prioritization of calories reinforces problematic messages like that food is only “good” when it’s low in calories or that eating less or being smaller is "best."

Nourishment isn’t math. It’s so much more than that. If you’re in recovery and calorie information feels triggering, you’re not alone. Try pausing and ask, “What do I want/need to eat right now?” instead of “What should I have?” Recovery is a process of learning to trust your body again, and that takes time, practice, and lots of self compassion.

10/06/2025

Eating disorder symptoms can be hard to spot, especially in the beginning of the struggle. That said, the earlier you get support, the better for treatment and recovery! Today, we're sharing a few of the more subtle signs of eating disorders for people of all ages. Now, you can still be struggling and have none of these specific symptoms - or you may have some, and not have an eating disorder at all! But if you notice some of these signs in yourself or a loved one, it's a good idea to get an assessment. Eating disorders are horrible, exhausting, all-consuming things but you CAN recover - especially with evidence-based treatment.

09/24/2025

In the beginning of eating disorder recovery, there’s a stage where you can hear some of the disordered thoughts and see the behaviors, but you may not fully believe yet that they aren’t the “right” thing to do. You are able to identify the urge or the critical thought, but you don’t have the distance yet to know for sure that the thing isn’t true. Let’s give an example: if your ed voice says you have to go for a run because if you don’t you will gain weight and no one will like you, you may be able to see that as an ed thought, BUT not believe (yet) that gaining weight doesn’t mean less likability. That’s okay!

You don’t have to believe the opposite to do the opposite - and hearing the voice is a HUGE win in and of itself. This is a stage of recovery - as you progress, you’ll be able to really believe your own thoughts and values and see the disorder of the ed voice, but this takes time. In the meantime, having a way to respond and still do the opposite of what the ed thinks or even prolong the behavior is a win. Here are a few ways to talk back to the voice, even when it still feels convincing. Recovery is brave and hard, exhausting work. You are doing something so difficult and it’s truly amazing. Small steps create huge change. Promise. ❤️💜

09/09/2025

One of the hardest things in eating disorder recovery can be living in a changed body. If your body grew after the hard, essential work of recovery, that can feel especially tricky. You’re challenging the eating disorder voice every day, both mentally and physically. On the other hand, if you’ve lost weight, that comes with its own unique challenges too. People love to comment or praise weight loss, often not realizing you’ve been struggling, and those comments can fuel the eating disorder voice in really painful ways (Reminder to all: don’t comment on people’s bodies!! Keep your eyes out for a post on what to do instead coming soon ). As you go back to school, or get back to routine, or see people you didn't see during the busy era of the summer, consider this your LOUD, shout-from-the-rooftops-reminder that it’s okay if your body changed this summer, or any season. You didn’t fail if you grew a size or two or three. Your body is truly the least interesting thing about you. You are so more than numbers, shapes, or sizes and the fact that you’re here, doing the work of recovery, is extraordinary.

09/03/2025

After a traumatic event, it’s normal to have many of the symptoms of PTSD. You may feel jumpy, strange, have trouble sleeping, or find yourself replaying what happened. In a trauma response that isn’t PTSD, symptoms fade over a few weeks.
�Now, if symptoms:
* Last longer than a month
* Disrupt work, school, or relationships
* Involve nightmares, flashbacks, or constant hypervigilance
* Have you tavoiding reminders of what happened
* Bring feelings of numbness, guilt, or hopelessness
* Leave you feeling detached or unable to connect with others
It may be more than an acute stress reaction, and it is worth seeking out an assessment for PTSD. If you develop PTSD, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re not weak. You went through somethint terrible and your body and brain are reacting as they know how. Don’t wait to reach out if you’re struggling. Evidence-based treatment can help you feel like yourself in months, not even years. 💜

08/26/2025

Change and healing aren’t always dramatic. It’s often found in the little things! Sometimes it’s finishing a meal, walking into a classroom without checking the exits, or just making it through the day. Things like staying present through a flashback, challenging one thought on paper, or using a coping skill instead of avoiding are huge and create the long term shifts overtime.

Research shows that improvement comes from consistent practice. Each “tiny win” — showing up for session, completing homework, or trying even just one skill — helps rewire the brain and builds the foundation for lasting change.

08/18/2025

ChatGPT and other AI can do lots of things, but there are really concerning ways people are using them, like turning to AI for therapy, venting, medical advice, or even to fuel eating disorder thoughts and behaviors. A recent study found that in less than 30 minutes, chatbots were giving dangerous advice to people about food and diet. Even when the advice isn’t "harmful," it’s still not personalized to you. AI doesn’t know your body’s specific needs, your health history, or what recovery looks like for you. It also isn’t grounded in best practices for eating disorder treatment. Because it’s pulling from the internet, it often spits out fatphobic, diet-focused “guidance” that can be really triggering - and sometimes it even sounds convincing while actually being inaccurate.

ChatGPT can be a good tool for some things, but it’s not a therapist, it doesn’t know your body, and it cannot guide your recovery OR give you feedback on what weight you should be, how much you should eat, or anything adjacent. Our advice? Skip the chatbot when it comes to eating disorder stuff. Recovery is best supported by real human experts who can understand you, your story, and your unique needs.

08/14/2025

Had to hop on this trend because as many may know, Dr. Jenna and many of our clinicians are big Taylor fans. Being an evidence-based therapist isn’t about being a “robot” who just simply and blindly follows a manual. It’s about showing up for our clients with the current best methods that have been tested, refined, and proven to work and delivering them with a person-focused approach.

It means knowing our fav treatment protocols as well as we know our fav Taylor songs and adapting them to meet the real need of our clients when they don’t fit the “book,” getting hyped about a new randomized controlled trial and new findings, tracking progress as we celebrate small wins, because data and change go together. Always learning, because the science evolves, and we know no model is perfect and advocating for evidence-based, research-supported therapy because we know that you deserve treatments that really work.

The life of an evidence-based clinician is hours of supervision, consultation, and training. It’s ensuring treatment fidelity within the reality of limited session time. It’s getting to see something incredible: clients building skills, pushing back against eating disorders and OCD and trauma and PTSD, and showing that change IS possible through brave, hard work. It’s the best thing you could be, if you ask us!

08/11/2025

When you’re working to stop binging and get out of the binge-restrict cycle, you actually have to eat MORE. Regular intervals of eating - and eating enough on those intervals - is essential to recovery. Often, people want to restrict more or avoid foods that have led to binges or create lots of strict rules around binging, but this actually increases your likelihood to binge! Step one is to increase your eating, while working with a clinician on your eating disorder voice and other behaviors, and lean into the process. It’s possible to get out of the cycle and build healthier and more adaptive habits with hard work and time. If you’re struggling, reach out. We’re here for you 💜