What Eating Disorder Therapy in St. George, Utah Really Looks Like: Healing Beneath the Surface
Eating disorders aren’t just about food.
They’re about the negative, relentless beliefs underneath. Beliefs such as the fear that you’re not lovable, that you have to earn your worth, and that control is the only way to feel safe.
When life feels unpredictable, creating rules around food can feel like relief, at least for a while.
However, what begins as a way to cope slowly becomes an obsession that you can’t escape even when you want to stop.
You might find yourself restricting food, obsessing over what you eat, or never feeling satisfied with your body.
You might feel anxious around meals, terrified of losing control, or stuck in a cycle of spending all day trying not to eat, only to end up binging, then drowning in guilt and shame.
It’s exhausting.
The harder you try to “fix it,” the more trapped you feel, but eating disorder therapy in Utah can help.
Symptoms of an eating disorder become the cage
The symptoms people can see, like restricting, obsessing, overexercising, and binging, are just the surface. Underneath, eating disorders are fueled by patterns that run deep: perfectionism, fear of judgment, the belief that worth must be earned, and people pleasing.
These patterns trick you into thinking that control will bring peace. However, the more you chase control, the further peace slips away.
While on the outside you might look “fine,” inside you feel trapped, mentally counting, comparing, overanalyzing, and compensating with food all day long. It’s a cycle that feeds itself: restriction leads to obsession, obsession leads to exhaustion, and exhaustion leads back to the same promises to start over tomorrow.
Eating disorders don’t happen because someone cares too much about food, but they happen because somewhere along the way, food became the safest place to put the pain.
The Deeper Roots: What Causes Eating Disorders
Eating disorders often take root long before the symptoms ever show up. Beneath the rules, guilt, and obsession are complex emotional and physiological patterns like attempts to find safety and control in a world that feels chaotic
For many, perfectionism and people-pleasing set the stage. You learned early that love or acceptance came from being “good,” doing things right, and never needing too much. That pressure to perform turns inward into a constant evaluation of your body, your choices, and your worth.
Control becomes a form of protection. When anxiety spikes or life feels uncertain, food and routines offer something that can be controlled. Restriction can numb emotions, and binging can quiet them for a moment. Both can create a sense of control, even as ironically they take control away.
Trauma, loss, or chronic stress can make these patterns worse. We live in a culture that celebrates discipline, productivity, and shrinking yourself to fit; it’s easy for disordered behaviors to look like “willpower” on the outside.
Eating disorders are never about vanity; they’re about pain, protection, and the desperate attempt to feel safe in your own body.
What Eating Disorder Therapy in St. George Actually Looks Like
Eating disorder therapy isn’t about fixing how you eat or helping you find more willpower. It’s about helping you feel safe. safe with me as your therapist, safe with food, and safe in your own body again.
Each session is built around safety, curiosity, and compassion. You’ll never be pushed to change faster than you’re ready. Instead, we take time to notice what’s happening inside you, the thoughts, emotions, and sensations that come up when you eat, rest, or even think about your body.
Eating disorder Therapy is a space to be curious instead of judgmental. Many of my clients come in carrying guilt and shame about their eating, their body, or their emotions. Together, we ask questions instead of criticizing: Why might this part of me feel afraid? What is it trying to protect?
Therapy is a space to practice compassion, and often in ways you’ve never been able to before. Eating disorder recovery begins when you can treat yourself with the same kindness you’d offer someone you love.
In eating disorder therapy, we focus on emotions and the nervous system, not control. We explore how restricting or binging may have helped you cope with anxiety, numb pain, or feel a sense of calm. We then find new ways to help your body and mind regulate without turning against yourself.
This process isn’t about losing weight or “getting back on track.” It’s about reconnecting with the parts of you that have been working so hard to keep you safe, and helping them find gentler, more supportive ways to do their job.
Healing Your Relationship With Your Body Through Eating Disorder Therapy in St. George, Utah
Healing your relationship with your body doesn’t mean waking up one day and loving every part of it.
It means learning how to live with your body again without spending every moment judging it, fixing it, or comparing it.
For many women I work with in eating disorder therapy in St. George, Utah, the goal isn’t body-positivity; it’s body-neutrality. It’s being able to get dressed in the morning without overthinking what to wear, to eat lunch without worrying what others might think, and to move through your day without your body being the loudest part of your mind.
Improving body image is about offering respect instead of criticism, and gentleness instead of control. It’s learning to care for your body as something that belongs to you, not something that has to meet a standard for anyone else.
In eating disorder therapy, we explore what it means to treat your body as something you respect rather than a problem. That might look like noticing sensations again, resting when you need to, or simply allowing your body to exist without needing it to change.
You don’t have to love your body to begin healing it. You only have to start offering it the same patience and compassion you’re learning to give yourself.
Why St. George Is a Good Place to Heal
If you’re a woman living in St. George, you already know how the weather here can bring up mixed feelings. The warmth lasts longer, the days stay sunny, and that often means more time in shorts, tank tops, and swimsuits. For many women, that can feel uncomfortable, especially when body image is something you’re working on.
This is also part of what makes St. George a powerful place to heal. The climate here offers daily opportunities to face the parts of body image that feel hardest, the ones that make you want to hide or stay small. Eating Disorder Therapy can help you practice showing up differently: letting your body exist without apology, noticing discomfort with compassion, and remembering that your worth isn’t tied to how covered or uncovered you are.
Beyond that, St. George’s landscape naturally supports healing. There’s something about being outdoors, hiking among red rocks, walking through Snow Canyon State Park, or sitting in the warmth of the sun in Zion National Park that helps you reconnect with your body as part of something bigger. Gentle movement, fresh air, and nature can all help your nervous system regulate and remind you what it feels like to be in your body instead of at war with it.
Recovery doesn’t mean loving every part of your body overnight. It means finding moments where you can breathe, and feel ok taking up space right here in the community you live in.
Taking the First Step Toward Eating Disorder Recovery in St. George, Utah
Starting eating disorder therapy can feel terrifying.
It’s one thing to have thoughts that stay in your head: he fears, the guilt, the things you tell yourself about food or your body, and another to speak them out loud to someone you’ve just met. It can feel exposing, even risky.
Sharing those thoughts is also where healing begins. When you bring what’s been silent into the open, you start to see that you’re not broken or “crazy.” You’re human, and there are reasons why your mind and body have been trying so hard to protect you this way.
As a therapist who provides eating disorder therapy in St. George, Utah, my role is to help you move at a pace that feels safe. You don’t have to have the right words, and you don’t have to be ready to tell everything at once. I’ve been trained to help you make sense of the things that feel confusing or shameful and to show you that there’s a way through it that doesn’t rely on control or punishment.
How to start working with an eating disorder therapist in St. George, Utah,
Here’s what that first step can look like:
Reach out for a free consultation. We’ll talk briefly about what you’ve been experiencing and what you’re looking for.
Begin therapy with safety as the foundation. You set the pace — every session is built around trust, not pressure.
Start finding freedom again. Together, we’ll help your body and mind unlearn the patterns that once felt necessary, so you can live with more peace and confidence.
Recovery isn’t about chasing perfection again. It’s just about being consistent. Some days will feel lighter, others heavy, but over time, you’ll begin to notice small shifts: moments of calm around food, more patience with yourself, a sense that you’re finally coming home to who you are.
Online Eating Disorder Therapy in Utah
Starting therapy can feel vulnerable, especially when it’s about something as personal as food and body image. Online therapy in Utah makes that step feel safer. You can meet from your own home, curl up on your couch, and talk honestly without worrying who might see you walk into a waiting room.
For many of my clients, online therapy actually feels easier than in-person. It removes the stress of travel, scheduling, and childcare, and helps you open up in a space that already feels comfortable. The work is just as deep, and sometimes even more effective, because you can relax into it.
At Maple Canyon Therapy, I offer online eating disorder therapy across Utah, including Cedar City, Salt Lake City, Provo, Cedar City, Heber City, Logan, and other Southern Utah communities.
Wherever you are in Utah, you can start healing your relationship with food and your body right where you are.
About the Author
Ashlee Hunt, LCSW, is the founder of Maple Canyon Therapy and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in eating disorder therapy in Utah.
Ashlee has spent more than half her life caring about people with eating disorders, working across every level of care, from outpatient therapy to intensive treatment, inpatient and residential levels. In addition to her clinical work, Ashlee has served as an adjunct professor at Utah State University, teaching future social workers how to approach mental health through compassion, curiosity, and empowerment. Ashlee’s approach is relational and trauma-informed, blending evidence-based care with warmth and humanity. She believes recovery is not about control or willpower, but about learning to feel safe with your body, your emotions, and yourself.When she’s not in session, Ashlee enjoys riding her e-bike with her husband through Snow Canyon State Park and finding simple moments of calm in the red rock beauty of St. George, Utah.