http://centerforhopeandhealth.com/

Center for Hope & Health, LLC, 63 W Lancaster Avenue, Ste 05, Ardmore, PA (2025)

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 💜

06/04/2025

OCD doesn’t grab onto random things. In fact, it’s the opposite. It fixates on what matters most to you. That’s why people with intrusive thoughts about harming others or being morally “bad” are often the least likely to act on them because their values are in direct opposition to those fears.

So if OCD is popping up around your relationship, your friendships, your health, your safety, or anything else close to your heart, remember: it’s targeting that area because you care. That doesn’t make the thoughts true—it does makes them painful.

OCD isn’t telling you the truth. It’s telling you where you’re most vulnerable. And that’s exactly where compassion and evidence based treatment can help. OCD is so hard but treatment helps - and you can turn down the volume and find more freedom from it. Reach out if you’re struggling. We are here to help!

05/20/2025

Let’s talk about body checking. Body checking is when you repeatedly and purposefully do things to monitor your size/shape/weight. It can include lots of things - and can be sneaky! You might not even realize you’re doing it. It can look like:

🔁 Repeatedly checking your reflection/specific angles
📏 Pinching, measuring, or touching parts of your body
📷 Obsessing over photos to spot changes or taking photos in the same outfits/clothes/location to compare
👖 Trying on “test clothes” or specific items to see how they fit differently
🧠 Mentally scanning your body or comparing to others
🗣️ Asking for reassurance (“Do I look different?” “Have I gained weight?”)

Body checking can give short-term relief, but actually, it strengthens the hold body image and behaviors have on you. In fact, research shows that the more often you check, the more distressed you feel about your body. In recovery, noticing and reducing body checking can be one of the hardest, but so worthwhile, steps.

At the Center for Hope and Health, we help clients build sustainable, supportive coping tools and break free of the eating disorder voice, behaviors, and control. Reach out. We’re here

05/16/2025

Bad body image days or moments are never fun. The self critical voice can pop up so loudly and so intensely and make everything feel so hard. One of the first steps (and it can be tough!!) is noticing the thoughts and naming them for what they are - a thought, a distorted one, and not a fact. Then step two can be to challenge them - even if that means just putting a little distance between your own thoughts and the intrusive negative ones or going all the way to challenging and re-writing them. Here are a few responses to try when a mean thought pops in and sticks around. And if that voice just won’t quit?? Reach out. You don’t have to challenge it alone!

05/11/2025

Mother's Day can be a beautiful celebration of love and joy and connection and gratitude. That said, it can also be a reminder of pain, of dreams-not-yet-had, of what could have been, of loss, of trauma, of complication. It's okay to sign off of social media, to say no thank you to activities, to do whatever YOU need on this day - even if what you need is to act as if it's just a regular Sunday. Whatever today brings up for you, be gentle with yourself - it's one of the best gifts you can give to yourself (and others), if you ask us!

04/30/2025

When you’re feeling frozen, mentally disconnected, or not present, even a little dissociative, getting back into your body and with the present moment can help a lot. “Getting grounded” can sound kind of woo woo but it really is based in science! grounding techniques and purposeful breathing can help bring you back to the present moment and re-engage your mind and body.

Grounding techniques, like naming five things you see or feeling the texture of an object or noticing closely how you feel in the moment physically, use sensory input to activate the prefrontal cortex, helping shift the brain out of a the fight or flight zone and closer to regulation.

Purposeful breathing, especially slow breathing (like inhaling for 4, exhaling for 6), triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to decreased heart rate, lower cortisol levels, and a reduction in symptoms of anxiety. It’s one of your easiest and quickest super powers for mental wellness! When you’re feeling overwhelmed or not available or numb, or really any tough feeling, try a quick breathing or grounding exercise. It can help! And if you’re struggling, reach out. We’re here for you.

04/21/2025

You know how people say it has to get worse before it gets better? Or that it’s always darkest before the sun rises? That idea is especially true when it comes to doing hard mental health work.

When you’re healing from trauma, working toward eating disorder recovery, addressing PTSD, managing anxiety, or navigating any mental health challenge, you often feel more sensitive, more vulnerable, maybe just a little more emotionally raw, as the healing and growth start to happen.

As you begin to face things, change how you respond, stop avoiding discomfort, let go of symptoms, and start nourishing yourself, the anxiety, ED, or OCD can push back. That’s normal. It’s part of the process. The bumps, the discomfort, the moments that feel harder? They’re not failures. They’re signs that you’re really doing the work.

And we promise it doesn’t stay so hard forever. Soon, it gets so much better. You just gotta keep through.

Center for Hope & Health, LLC

09/09/2025

09/03/2025

08/26/2025

08/18/2025

08/14/2025

08/11/2025

06/04/2025

05/20/2025

05/16/2025

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04/30/2025

04/21/2025

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