Eating Disorder Center Of Denver

After over thirty years of my life being controlled by my disorder, I had given up hope of a life and was convinced I would only exist in this world. The incredible team at EDCare Denver taught me otherwise. I've been to several treatment programs, none of which compare to the compassion, the dedication, the variety of skills taught and the humanness of this place.

Each group and track are phenomenal in their own respects. The skills I learned didn't end at the relationship between my body and with food. My life is so much different these days; I've learned better communication skills, the ability to be assertive, true accountability and honesty, responsibility, how to diffuse negative thoughts and impulsivity, revisiting my relationship with substances and using these skills to truly feel my emotions, rather than mask them.

The Milieu therapists are ALL, without a doubt, the kindest, warmest souls that genuinely care about us. They go above and beyond for all of their patients, day in day out, and regardless of how many slips and falls I've had in my recovery, not one single time did I ever feel disdain or judgement. The primary therapists are the most dedicated individuals, I felt honoured to be a part of this program and work with the two I was lucky enough to learn from.

The dieticians, especially Ali, are the most down to earth, informed and inspiring people. The kitchen works with many of our needs, and do their absolute best to provide variety, trust, creativity and passion when nourishing us. Their program director is one of the most dedicated people I've met; putting the well being and safety of all patients first, leading by example, while still being the most welcoming and knowledgeable woman.

Each individual at EDCare Denver has impacted my life in such a beautiful way, that, despite coming into the program with a semi closed and resistant mind, I have found a multitude of reasons to embrace my recovery and go live my life! My peers never failed to offer support and love and I learned what healthy friendship truly is. EDCare Denver not only gave me the tools to get my life back, but did so with grace, compassion and equanimity. Shout out to all at EDC Denver, I am eternally grateful for you all!

Everything about the program itself was pretty good compared to other treatment stays I've had. The only reason it is three stars instead of five is because of an experience I had with a house staff member, the supervisor of the house nonetheless. She seemed to be very judgmental toward one of my diagnoses which is very easily stigmatized and didn't seem to have the ability to try to be empathic and put herself not in just my shoes, but other patients' shoes as well.

It seemed like she didn't want me at the house because I struggled with some self-destructive behaviors while I was there. Whenever I would check in with her even after having conversations on how to best help me when struggling, it felt like she was never present nor really cared enough to just sit and listen. It was always just, "take your meds" or "use your coping skills." I never had any other issues with any of the house staff members besides her.

Everyone else seemed to genuinely care about me as a person and took the time to see my authentic self even through the times I was struggling with my ED and BPD. As someone who struggles with BPD, I have been placed into the stigmatizing box when in reality, I love and care deeper about everyone around me to the point it hurts at times. I do not mean to come across as manipulative, but it felt like that was all the house staff supervisor could see me as.

She also told me that she was in her own recovery and while I understand self-disclosure can be helpful, it didn't feel helpful in that moment. Also, telling other house staff to be cautious of me because of my BPD is downright disrespectful. I was enraged when I heard that and haven't been able to let it just pass because as someone who works with a multitude of patients, some of whom have BPD, that is not only disrespectful to me, but to them as well.

What happened to "you are not your labels/diagnoses"? If you can't respect working with all different types of diagnoses, especially when BPD is a common co-morbid disorder, then you shouldn't work in the mental health field. I am not manipulative, abusive, or toxic. I grew up in a household where I had to SHOW I was hurting because saying it didn't get me anywhere, so I am sorry if showing that I'm hurting by acting out on self-destructive behaviors is hard to see, but I was at EDCare to heal.

While it is primarily an ED treatment center, you will also deal with trauma, personality disorders, and substance use among the population you are treating. Get educated. I personally would like a genuine apology, but I doubt I will get that because it was a he said-she said type of situation. The program itself is phenomenal. I enjoyed every group and all of the milieu therapists as well as primary therapists, psychiatrists, kitchen staff, and dietitians were all so kind and down to earth.

They made it easy to want to be there to recover. I really enjoyed the empowerment based program and how it was up to me to choose recovery. Overall, I had a very positive experience and would recommend the program to any of my friends who are struggling but would advise them to be wary of certain house staff. It's been a week and still no response? 5 likes on this review too. Some people must agree with me.

With my experience there, and seeing how others are treated, I'd give it 0 stars if I could. In the first month the program was okay but after that it went downhill fast. They were ablist towards many different problems, one that I'm comfortable saying because I had to deal with it is ADHD. Was told that I wasn't trying after basically begging for help multiple times and receiving nothing.

House staff didn't want to get involved unless it was a good experience and would say to "just learn to deal with it" To any problem. Millue wasn't helpful either as they(in my experience) picked out even the smallest things wrong (like keeping encouraging eating disorder behaviors but not allow you to wear certain sleeves, even though there was no dress code.) It seems they're just in it for the money, overall. I wasn't the only one treated like this at the EDCare I went to. Also doesn't help any other mental disorders.

I am very thankful for this place. I went in not even knowing I had an ED. I got a team of people when I arrived. Psychiatrist, Primary Therapist, Family Therapist, Dietitian. I was scared at first. I was honestly angry I was there. I had very many emotions in my first week. A lot more to come as well. I was in my sick body and sick mental space upon my admission.

I don't know how to put this into words. I am so blessed to have spent 5 months here. I stayed at their Connections House. I was there for 99 days and I miss it now. 24 hour counseling if needed at my finger tips. I had a TEAM of wonderful people who actually cared. They truly care about every one of their clients. They took the time to help find solutions.

They offer DBT, ACT, CBT classes! I was taught how to be my authentic self. I was taught to face all my past trauma and to deal with it so I could let go and move on. I was shown how to communicate without being aggressive. I wish I could put a before and after video clip of me on here. I went from a heartbroken, sad, angry, hurt, lonely malnourished lady to a cheerful, bright, happy, nourished, mentally well, motivated, beautiful woman.

Inside and out. I would recommend this place to anyone struggling with an ED. They help with all different types of EDs. They helped me get back to my children as a responsible adult. They not only saved my life but helped out 3 wonderful children get their mother back. All the staff here is beyond FANTASTIC! I got so attached I didn't want to discharge.

I wanted to stay there forever. My peers were all so very kind and caring. I really don't have anything bad to say about this place. From the very bottom of my heart I love you ED Care and THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY LIFE!

I had a very negative experience. As clients, we were infantilized and condescended to. Anytime I had an opinion or a thought that was contrary to a therapist or a programming, it was treated as if it was "the eating disorder talking, " as if I were incapable of intelligent thought. It's very much a "one size fits all fits all" approach, with no individualization.

They claim to have things like a trauma track; the "trauma track" is literally that you just don't go to the sexuality group and have a different group one time a week, for one hour, instead. I suspect that their tracks for athletes and people with addiction are similarly unimpressive. Staff also doesn't do the greatest job of communicating with each other.

When you ask a question (like, can I have a water bottle with me during the day), the answer is invariably that the team will have to discuss it and get back to you. This can take days, if it ever happens. When all you want is to be able to have a water bottle during the day, or other similar basic requests, it's really annoying when it takes a full week for your practitioners to talk to each other.

I mean, they all work in the same building, literally in the same hallway. When I had questions about long-term planning, like what exercise my look like in the long term and how we could work through that, these questions were just constantly put off for later. I could tell they had no real treatment plan in this way. If your insurance quits paying, they will drop you instantly. Don't expect any follow up care to be set up.

I was dismissed with no future appointments set up, no relapse prevention plan, no opportunity to share my autobiography. Insurance quit paying, so it was my last day. ED Care is a for-profit treatment center, and you can tell that. Overall, ED Care can help you with weight gain, but I certainly wouldn't expect any lasting mental health benefits from doing their program.

"Empowerment Program" turns out to be a euphemism for gaslighting both patient and family. Very dangerous place. Issues include safety, confidentiality, and withholding access to food/water (at altitude!). The professional who referred us worked there two years ago and was aghast at our experience. Turns out there had been a total turnover. For profit business. Can't wait to read their denial below.

I am incredibly grateful for the time I spent in the Athlete Track at ED Care Denver. When I entered the program, I was trying to compete while unprepared and unmotivated. ED Care not only gave me the tools to relearn how to properly fuel myself for athletics (and life in general), but they also helped me find joy again in the sport I'd dedicated my life to. I haven't felt as fulfilled, strong, and energized as I do now in all my years as an athlete, and I owe that to my time in the Athlete Track.

I am so endlessly grateful for the care I received at EDCare. Unlike many other treatment centers, EDCare treats every eating disorder equally and gets to the root of the illness rather than focusing solely on behaviors. Being an empowerment based program, it is ideal and necessary for those who have been in treatment multiple times with little success.

The amazing care given at EDCare was apparent to me at the very beginning of a 3+ month insurance battle, of trying to get me the treatment I desperately needed. Sarah was super helpful in guiding me through the admission process and it spoke volumes that the clinical team was willing to fight and advocate so hard for someone who wasn't even their patient.

They battled with insurance for over 3 months before I was finally able to get the care I needed. All of the staff were incredibly compassionate & caring, and my primary 100% saved my life. EDCare offers groups on a wide range of social justice issues including weight stigma, which was such a game changer for me. EDCare won't do the work for you. The staff are there to guide you and help you in your recovery, but ultimately they can't make the changes for you.

If you're not ready to put in the work for your recovery, this is not the treatment center for you. Their modality aims to guide you through the painful parts of treatment, while also ensuring that the patient is taking accountability for their recovery. Being in a larger body & struggling with all of the behaviors at different times, many traditional eating disorder treatment centers have been unable to treat me, or have done so unethically, by focusing on suppressing my weight rather than interrupting behaviors.

At other facilities, I was being essentially prescribed an eating disorder which was incredibly damaging. EDCare practices through a lens of health at every size and body diversity, making treatment a welcoming place for people of ALL bodies, not just the "stereotypical eating disorder" bodies. They have specialized tracks including trauma and substance abuse which were incredibly helpful for me & many of the people I went through treatment.

They also are 100% gender affirming which is absolutely crucial for a place to be safe for everybody. They have supportive housing which is a great start to interrupt behaviors before implementing those skills at home. As someone who had been in and out of treatment for 5+ years with no more than a month here and there at home at a time, I can attest that EDCare is life saving.

I have been out of treatment since leaving EDCare in 2018, and should myself or anyone I know ever need treatment for their eating disorder, I will recommend EDCare in a heartbeat. Special shoutout to Dr. Goffredi, Dr. Batson, Jess (milieu), Rachel F, Dr. Rollin, Shane, and of course Dr. Pryor. They all changed my life for the better!

They treat every patient as if they're underweight and anorexic. If you are one of the 93% of people with an ED that isn't anorexia, don't expect to be helped. I spent 4 months in treatment here and most of my experience was negative. My dietician, Lainey, lied to me and denied it when I confronted her about it. My treatment team was untrustworthy, I'm now questioning a lot of what they told me.

If you have any ED that isn't anorexia, they hardly address it groups. 90% of groups are catered to anorexia only. The therapy groups in PHP often start a half hour late or ends an hour early, on Sundays we did nothing, there was no point in even coming in. Meanwhile insurance is paying $1800 a day for each patient in PHP. The art therapist, Becca, doesn't organize anything for patients, she just tells you to do whatever you want while she puts zero effort in and gives patients a rude attitude when they do something she disagrees with.

While I was there a blizzard came into Denver and treatment should have been cancelled so patients didn't have to drive in dangerous conditions, but it wasn't. The family groups on Saturdays weren't helpful for my family at all because the therapists in charge of the groups didn't relate their subjects back to eating disorders. Patients were allowed to say horrible, triggering things in groups and continue going to said groups.

I became close with some other patients, it was nice making meaningful friendships, my only positive thing to say about the whole experience. If you actually want help from an eating disorder center, don't go here. ED Care leaves much to be desired and was a disappointing experience overall. Besides the friends I made, I wish I had never gone.

Well, looks like I'm somewhat in the minority here, but I personally was not terribly impressed by EDCare. Yes, the facility is very pretty and the staff are very "nice, " but overall the set-up did not (in my opinion) effectively address the issues of the population they were attempting to treat. Basically, a true "empowerment-based" program needs TWO components, of which EDCare only had the first: an open, non-restrictive setting that allowed clients great freedom to come and go as they pleased.

The second component which EDCare was missing, however, was holding their adult clients accountable for the behaviors they chose to have within that open setting. EDCare comprises only two floors in a 17-ish story office building. Clients had full freedom to skip groups, charge up and down the MANY flights of stairs to exercise, go to any of the other floor bathrooms to purge, go across the street to convenience stores to buy food and laxatives and cigarettes, and even to dramatically "run away" from either the program itself or the residential house. This, unfortunately, comprised the majority of the client behavior that occurred while my sister was in treatment.

It is obviously possible that she was just there with an unusually dramatic and immature group of people, so I will leave that concession open. But for the two months she was there, it seemed like the vast majority of patients at EDCare were simply there to take advantage of the open structure to act out and prove how sick they were, rather than to actually do the work of getting better.

And while some "acting out" may be expected in a treatment center, it is NOT appropriate for a facility to respond to full-grown adult women as though they are children and reinforce them for behaving this way. Staff would "chase down" the clients who ran away or disappeared to other floors (which obviously took people away from the group that WAS following the rules) and just basically responded to the clients in a way that sent a strong message that remaining sick would get them more attention than trying to get better.

Because my family member is a natural rule-follower, and because the behavior "expectation bar" was set so laughably low by the other patients, she simply sailed through the program amidst glowing accolades.and within a couple weeks of discharge was right back where she started. Basically, the staff spent so much time and energy catering to the clients who were determined to act like manipulative pre-teens that they had very little time left to go into the deeper, more complex issues needed to help the people who GENUINELY wanted to get better. Overall, my experience of this program was that the general ambience and culture was one of coddling/babying ADULT patients in their histrionic attention-seeking, rather than expecting them to adhere to even basic standards appropriate for their age.

It is necessary to chase after adolescents and children with eating disorders; in my opinion it is HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE to take this same approach with adults. Or if that approach must be taken, then the facility should give up calling themselves "empowerment-based" and just lock the unit so they can dial down the level of "mischief" the patients can get up to. Basically, I was just very disheartened, both by the experience my sister had and by the very obvious observation that from a behavioral intervention perspective, this facility reinforces and encourages the very behaviors it claims to treat. Hence why I would not recommend EDCare to individuals who genuinely want to get better and to be surrounded by a SUPPORTIVE staff and peer group who are working toward that as well.

The primary "peer-group" here seemed to be comprised of those competing with each other to prove who was the sickest, and the recovery-oriented patients were definitely the exception rather than the rule unfortunately.