Specialized ARFID Therapy for Adults in New Jersey

Getting specialized help for ARFID doesn't have to mean adding another commute to your week. I provide evidence-based ARFID therapy via secure, HIPAA-compliant video sessions for adults throughout New Jersey, so you can get the care you need without disrupting your already full schedule.

For a comprehensive overview of ARFID therapy and how it works, visit my main ARFID treatment page.

Specialized ARFID Treatment for Adults

What ARFID Looks Like for Adults

What looks like picky eating from the outside is a list of maybe a dozen foods you can reliably eat, prepared specific ways, from brands you trust. The list has nothing to do with preference. Your body has been keeping a working inventory of what doesn't trigger a gag, what doesn't set off a fear response, what doesn't feel intolerable.

Sunday dinners at your partner's parents' house come around every couple of weeks. Your mother-in-law has tried different things to find something you'll eat and you can tell she's tried hard. You've started bringing your own contribution, or eating before you arrive, or finding a quiet excuse to skip.

The hardest part of parenting with ARFID is cooking what you can't tolerate yourself: the school lunch your kid loves, the family meal your partner wants you all to share, the food your kid's friend asks for at a sleepover. You make food you can't eat and then eat your safe food after bedtime.

International travel is the hardest version. You spend weeks before a trip mapping out restaurants near the hotel, screenshotting menus, packing shelf-stable backups. The trip you wanted to be about the place becomes a trip about whether you'll have enough to eat.

Underneath all of it is a story you've carried for decades. That you're too sensitive, too rigid, too much work to feed.

What ARFID Recovery Can Look Like

The conference schedule stops being a logistics problem layered on top of the reason you're there. You eat the welcome breakfast. You participate in the working lunch without rehearsing your exit lines. When someone introduces themselves while you're holding a plate, you can focus on the person in front of you instead of running the math on what to do with the food.

You sit through Sunday dinner at your partner's parents' house and eat from the table. Your mother-in-law's rotation of meals stops being something you have to pre-eat around; you find pieces of each meal you can eat, and the pieces grow. Your partner stops checking your face under the table to see how you're doing.

The international trip stops being a food logistics problem with sightseeing layered on top. You eat from local menus, you try food at the rental, you stop packing a suitcase with shelf-stable backups. You come home with photos from the market and the meal you cooked from it, instead of the unopened safe foods you brought.

You cook for your kid and you eat what you cooked. The lunch your kid asks you to pack, the dinner they want you to recreate from a friend's house, the recipe your partner has wanted you to share: these all become foods you can cook and eat alongside them. The post-bedtime safe-food meal stops being your real dinner.

You're not going to wake up one morning loving everything. The work we do together widens the range enough that the limits stop being the thing that decides whether you go to the work dinner, whether you say yes to the trip, or whether you stay through the family meal.

The medical side starts to follow. The iron levels stabilize, the B12 numbers come up, the supplements your doctor has been adjusting for years finally have something to work with. The fatigue that's been baseline for as long as you remember gets less constant. The annual physical stops being a list of things that aren't quite right.

The shame softens over months, not days. The next time someone comments on what's on your plate, the comment doesn't hit you the way it used to. You stop spending the days before family events rehearsing what you'll say about the meal. You stop reading the menu twelve times before the work dinner.

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. 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.

New Jersey License: NJ-44SC06323400

More about me

Getting Started with ARFID Therapy in New Jersey

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 New Jersey? Yes. I'm licensed to provide telehealth services to adults throughout New Jersey. 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 price.

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.

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 New Jersey

I provide online ARFID therapy to adults throughout New Jersey, including Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, Paterson, Elizabeth, Edison, Woodbridge, Toms River, Cherry Hill, Princeton, Morristown, Montclair, Hackensack, Trenton, Atlantic City, and all surrounding communities. If you live anywhere in New Jersey, you can work with me.

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