Specialized ARFID Therapy for Adults in Florida

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.

Holidays at your in-laws' mean watching a Thanksgiving table you can't eat from. Your mother-in-law has tried to accommodate you for years and you can tell she's tired of it. You've started bringing your own dish, or eating before you arrive, or quietly skipping the meal and hoping no one notices.

Your sibling still makes the joke about the bag of plain pasta you used to bring everywhere as a kid. Your cousin asks at every family gathering if you're "still doing the thing." The family lore about your eating has followed you into adulthood, and you've stopped trying to update the story.

Dinner parties at friends' houses are harder than restaurants. At a restaurant you can quietly order what works for you. At someone's home, you've been served a plate you can't eat, and the gap between what you eat and what they made is the gap you spend the night managing.

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 eat at your friend's dinner party. Your portion looks like everyone else's. The host stops watching to see if you liked the dish. Your friends stop calling ahead to ask what they should serve, and you stop replying with the list of foods you can't eat.

The family stories about your eating stop coming up at every gathering. Your sibling drops the plain-pasta jokes, your cousin stops asking if you're "still doing the thing," and the family lore stops being a story about how you eat. The next generation of cousins doesn't grow up hearing the same jokes about you.

You sit at the Thanksgiving table and eat from it. Your mother-in-law's cooking stops being a sensory problem; the smells, the noise, the heat of the room stop pushing you out to the porch between courses. You stay through dessert and the football game instead of leaving the moment the plates clear.

You go to your partner's family dinner without spending the day before bracing for it. The food limitations stop being the central feature of the meal. Their family stops introducing you to relatives as "the one with the special diet." The eating stops being the thing they have to remember to ask about.

The work expands your range enough that the limitations stop being the thing that organizes your social, professional, and family life. You accept the wedding invitation in the town with no familiar restaurants. You say yes to the work trip to the client's city. You pick the dinner place because of the company, not because of the menu.

Your body responds to the wider range of food. The deficiencies that have followed you for years start to come into normal range. The energy you've been pushing through your days on caffeine and willpower starts coming from the food you're eating. Your doctor reads the bloodwork and stops adding things to your supplement list.

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.

Florida License: FL-SW 17620

More about me

Getting Started with ARFID Therapy in Florida

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 Florida? Yes. I'm licensed to provide telehealth services to adults throughout Florida. 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 do I handle dating with ARFID without making food the center of every conversation? Dating with ARFID is something we can work on directly in sessions, both the practical side (how to handle restaurant menus, what to say when invited to a partner's family meal) and the harder underlying question of when and how to share what's going on. The work helps you build language and strategies that fit your specific situation, so disclosure happens on your terms rather than as a default early-dating move.

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 Florida

I provide online ARFID therapy to adults throughout Florida, including Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Sarasota, Naples, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Clearwater, Lakeland, Daytona Beach, Pensacola, Fort Myers, Ocala, and all surrounding communities. If you live anywhere in Florida, you can work with me.

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