Eating Disorder Therapy
Haley Beeson, LCSW
A Special Focus on College Students & Young Adults
Haley Beeson, LCSW, provides eating disorder and disordered eating therapy for college students and young adults in Austin, TX, including students attending UT Austin.
The college years can bring significant changes. For many young adults, the transition to college involves increased independence, academic pressure, changing relationships, new social environments, and the challenge of navigating life away from home.
These transitions can also make existing struggles with food, body image, and self-worth difficult to manage.
Eating disorders do not always look the same, and they are not always easy to recognize. A student may appear successful academically and socially while privately experiencing significant distress around eating, exercise, weight, or their body.
Haley works with young adults who may be experiencing:
Restriction, food rules, or anxiety around eating
Binge eating or feeling out of control around food
Unhealthy relationship with exercise
A sense that their identity or self-worth is tied to their appearance
Difficulty adjusting to college, independence, or changing relationships
Anxiety surrounding meals, social events, or eating around others
Fear of weight gain or changes in body shape
Eating Disorders Are About More Than Food
Food and body image struggles often exist alongside deeper emotional experiences. For some people, eating disorder behaviors become a way of coping with anxiety, uncertainty, perfectionism, difficult emotions, or a desire for control.
For others, these struggles may be connected to relationships, family dynamics, life transitions, identity, or experiences that have shaped how they see themselves.
Haley’s approach considers the whole person and the experiences that may be contributing to their relationship with food and their body.
Support for Parents of College Students with Eating Disorders
When clinically appropriate and with the client’s consent, parent involvement and collaboration with other members of the treatment team may be incorporated into care.
Eating disorders can require more than individual outpatient therapy. When additional medical, nutritional, psychiatric, or specialized eating disorder treatment is needed, coordination with appropriate providers is a crucial part of supporting someone’s well-being.
Parents do not have to figure everything out on their own.