Specialized ARFID Therapy for Adults in Connecticut

What ARFID Looks Like for Adults

You've been called a "picky eater" for as long as you can remember. The label never captured what's happening: you eat from a list of maybe ten or twelve foods, prepared the same way, from the same brands when possible. The list has shrunk over time.

Office lunches turn into "I already ate" or pushing the catered sandwich around your plate. The team lunch order means scanning the spreadsheet for the one option you can manage, then explaining why you didn't sign up. You eat the granola bar from your drawer and tell yourself you'll eat real food at home.

If you have kids, you cook one meal for the household and put together a separate plate for yourself. Your kid asks why your food is different. Your partner stopped commenting but you can feel them noticing every time.

Dating means scanning the menu hoping there's something you can order, the back-up plan if there isn't, the small panic when your date suggests you split things. You've cancelled dates because the restaurant they picked has nothing you can eat.

Underneath all of it, the shame. You're an adult who's been told to "just eat" your whole life, and you've never been able to explain why you can't.

What ARFID Recovery Can Look Like

You sign up for the team lunch order without scanning for the one option you can manage. You eat what arrived at the meeting and put your energy into the meeting itself. The granola bar in your drawer stops being your real lunch. You stop building your workday around what you couldn't eat.

You eat from the same meal you cook for your family. Your kid stops asking why your food is different. The mealtime negotiation stops; you and your household are eating the same dinner. Your four-year-old's questions move on to whatever they're obsessed with that week.

You eat from the spread you set out for guests. You serve food you'd put on your own plate. The polite questions about why you're not eating stop being questions you have to dodge. The cleanup-from-the-kitchen-stash stops being your real meal.

You order off the dinner menu on a first date without rehearsing. You stop cancelling dates because of where they picked. The Diet Coke and a few bites of the safest thing stop being your survival strategy. You eat the dinner and the conversation gets to be about you and your date, not about the food anxiety running underneath.

Recovery means having a wide enough range that food stops being the thing your life has to work around. You don't have to love all foods to get there.

Your bloodwork gets better. The vitamin deficiencies start to resolve, your energy comes back, and your doctor stops sounding worried at your annual.

You stop apologizing for what you eat and stop trying to explain it to people who can't understand. The "just eat" line stops landing the same way, because you are eating. The eating stops being the part of your life you have to hide.

About Your Adult ARFID Clinician: Grace Annan, LICSW, LCSW-QS

I'm Grace Annan, a licensed clinical social worker whose practice centers on adult ARFID, with related work in adult eating disorders, body image after body change, and adult ADHD and autism assessments. Adult ARFID is one of the rarest specialties in adult mental health: most ARFID care is built for children, and adults who continue to experience ARFID often go years without finding a clinician who treats it as its own condition.

My work uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for ARFID (CBT-AR), the evidence-based treatment developed at Harvard Medical School. Studies show about 7 out of 10 people no longer meet ARFID criteria after a course of CBT-AR. We work systematically through food exposure, sensory tolerance, and the daily-life impact of the eating limitations.

Connecticut License: CT-13638

More about me

Getting Started with ARFID Therapy in Connecticut

Cost: $300 per session

Insurance: Private-pay, with monthly superbills you can submit to your insurance for potential out-of-network reimbursement. HSA and FSA accounts can be used for payment.

Frequency: Weekly sessions, typically 50 minutes.

Length of treatment: Most clients see meaningful progress within 20 to 30 sessions over 6 to 12 months. ARFID is specialized work, and I keep a small caseload so each client gets the focused attention this kind of therapy requires.

Format: Secure, HIPAA-compliant video. You can join from your home, your office, or anywhere private with a stable connection.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I do ARFID therapy online if I live anywhere in Connecticut? Yes. I'm licensed to provide telehealth services to adults throughout Connecticut. The sessions take place over a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform.

How do I know if I have ARFID versus being a picky eater? ARFID is more than preference. It's a restricted way of eating that affects your health (nutritional deficiencies, weight concerns), your daily functioning (avoiding meals or social events), or causes significant distress. If your eating limitations have followed you into adulthood and are interfering with your life, that's the line where it moves from preference into something a clinician can help with.

Do you take insurance? No. I'm a private-pay therapist. I provide monthly superbills you can submit to your insurance company for potential reimbursement of out-of-network mental health services. Many PPO plans reimburse a portion of the fee.

What if I've never done therapy before? Many of my ARFID clients haven't. The focus is on practical skill-building and structured food exposure, not deep emotional processing. The work is concrete and the goals are clear.

What if my ARFID is connected to autism or ADHD? This is very common, and it's part of why I built my practice this way. Many adults with ARFID also have ADHD, autism, or sensory processing differences, and CBT-AR can be adapted to account for those. If you're not sure whether ADHD or autism is also part of your picture, I conduct adult assessments for both as a separate offering, so the work stays inside the same practice instead of getting split across providers.

How does ARFID treatment work if my kids eat differently than I do? Treatment doesn't require you to change how you feed your family. We work on your specific eating range, not on the family's meals. As your range expands, the gap between what your household eats and what you eat narrows, which often makes mealtimes easier for everyone without anyone feeling forced into compromises that don't fit them.

How does this work if my job involves business meals or client dinners? Work meals are a common scenario clients want to address. We can build food exposures specifically around the kinds of meals your job involves: the catered lunch, the client dinner, the conference travel. As your range expands, the work events you've been declining or working around stop dictating your career calculations.

Do you offer support options besides individual ARFID therapy? Individual therapy is the format for this work because food exposure planning needs to be tailored to your specific tolerance and history.

Areas Served in Connecticut

I provide online ARFID therapy to adults throughout Connecticut, including Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Bridgeport, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, West Hartford, Greenwich, Fairfield, Milford, Stratford, Meriden, Norwich, New London, Middletown, Bristol, Manchester, Wallingford, Trumbull, Westport, Glastonbury, and all surrounding communities. If you live anywhere in Connecticut, you can work with me.

Online Adult ARFID Treatment in Florida, Washington D.C., Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York