The Emily Program Eating Disorder Treatment Center

All the practitioners I worked with were thoughtful, caring, and compassionate. I especially appreciated their depth of insight and ability to get to the root of my issues, rather than simply focusing on behavior changes. I also appreciated their quick response time and that they followed through with commitments they made... Like they called or saw me when they said they would. I'm also thankful for the option of lodging for PHP for those of us who live out of town.
Jan 5th, 2024

The rumors are true that the Emily program sucks. If you have other mental health diagnosis with your Ed or even addictions they will kick you out for it. They are so very strict about rules and guess what, I came out having a worse ED because of them. they lodge people together of all age ranges and will send you away with directions to the closest thing they can get to actually helping you without actually doing anything. I actually hated my time there. And they all could have done better at helping people with extremely fragile conditions
Nov 17th, 2023

The Emily program absolutely sucks. Do not go here. They are an absolute scam. They will scam you for your money. They will tell you over and over and over again that it is all covered and its all free due to your insurance if you have it especially if you have Molina healthcare. For me they said that it was completely covered and then all of a sudden when I said hey I dont want to do the program anymore then a month later they are now sending me a bill thats $315.
Sep 21st, 2023

Tl;dr - if you go to TEP w co-occuring mental health conditions do not be afraid to leave TEP for not attending to those conditions. I am appreciative of my time at The Emily Program though Id like to echo that they do not handle comorbidities very well. If youre thinking of receiving services from them you should be sure that a (non-ARFID) Eating Disorder is your primary mental health concern - or at least be cognizant of any other diagnoses you have while in treatment with TEP. They often ask patients with ADHD to go off of their meds, as a side effect of many ADHD medications is a suppressed appetite. When doing this, they do not counsel patients on alternative medications without this side effect, though they do exist. They also allow for very few Autism accommodations - such as a quiet place to self-soothe. And they offer none - so if you do not go in with an understanding of what works best for you it may be tough going to find out. They also do not treat General Anxiety, Depression, Substance Use, or Trauma-related disorders very well. If you suspect, or uncover, your eating difficulties are driven by - or strongly related to - these conditions you may have a hard time getting to the root of and resolving the issue at TEP. While I strongly encourage individuals to hear their team out, I feel the folks at TEP are very slow to recommend another treatment center - even when providers identify another condition as heavily influencing the ED.
Mar 9th, 2024

My experience with the Emily Program was overall very poor. I am fully recovered from my ED, ARFID, now from work with an individual dietician. This path is the one I would recommend to anybody who has a non-standard ED. Although they claim to have training and support for ARFID-patients, i most definitely believe they did not. In my opinion, their response to my negative reactions was poor. I remember them snapping at me and refusing to help privately when I asked. When I was in the Emily Program, I had body-image issues like a lot of teenagers do. I was not happy with my physical image, but I wanted to be BIGGER, not smaller. I felt as if the advice and guidance they gave was extremely general with little personalization. My ARFID was creating my body image issues because I was too afraid to eat, and it was causing weight loss. I didn't like being skinny at all, it made me depressed and uncomfortable. It was overwhelmingly obvious from my perspective from that they valued and centered the neurotypical white perspective over anything else, and did not think anyone could have an ED for any other reasons than what a neurotypical white woman would have an eating disorder for. I would tune out most of the body image conversations because I couldn't relate to anything being said, and when I told them that they dismissed it. Any complaint would usually be met with "This is your eating disorder talking", which was a frustrating philosophy to me. They would say this, but wouldn't be treating the right disorder and any communication I would try to make about my real struggle would be dismissed as anorexia trying to deceive them. This was extremely harmful and caused a lot more food anxiety for me because not only was I dealing with intrusive thoughts about being in a dangerous situation, I felt like I was being antagonized and characterized as dishonest, untrustworthy, and as if I didn't know myself. This was something they'd reiterate in front of multiple different people, and it was extremely invalidating to hear. Overall, I think this program can be good for somebody with anorexia, but if you are afflicted with anything else I would recommend going elsewhere. Two stars to factor in that I was not a typical eating disorder patient, and they probably struggled to train their providers about outlying EDs.
Jan 9th, 2024