Welcome to ACE

Mission

Based on our belief and experience that people can and do fully recover from eating disorders, our mission is to provide individualized, intensive treatment while allowing participants to maintain their daily lives as much as possible. We aim to provide a safe respectful, environment that enables participants to learn to become responsible for their own health and happiness. Toward this goal, ACE utilizes a variety of treatment components that have proven to be effective through scientific study.

Why Choose ACE?

Reliability: The Atlanta Center for Eating Disorders has been offering day treatment and intensive outpatient treatment for individuals with eating disorders since 1992. We are the longest standing intensive outpatient facility in Georgia. People from all over the southeast have come to Atlanta to receive treatment at ACE.

Stability: ACE has a core of eight staff members who have been with us for over 10 years providing excellent continuity and knowledge as a team.

Expertise: Fifty percent of the treatment staff are doctoral level clinicians and our masters level clinicians have many years of specialized experience .

Successful Outcome: We collect pre and post-treatment data on all our participants that show that people who come to ACE, as a group, do get better on EVERY MEASURE including eating disorder symptoms, depression and anxiety levels. (read about ACE's success)

Individualized Approach: Based on our mission stated above, participants can keep living their lives while in treatment! We can design a treatment schedule that allows the participant to come to any of our six days of programming, and attend hours that allow for other outside activities (such as taking off two nights a week early to attend classes).

But even more important than these statistics is that WE CARE. Our participants give us consistent feedback about the caring atmosphere at ACE.

What Does Treatment At ACE Involve?

Individual Therapy: 50 minute meeting one to two times a week to address both the eating disorder symptoms and underlying psychological, interpersonal, and social forces.

Family Therapy Components:

  • Family Therapy: 50 minutes per family per week to address family issues such as communication, the parents role in their child's treatment and recovery, and how the eating disorder and the family affect each other.


  • Family Orientation Workshop: Please click here for a description.


  • Intensive Family Weekend: Available and strongly recommended to all ACE participants and their families, especially those who are living at home with their family of origin. This 2-day, extended family therapy experience focuses on such things as family and individual personality dynamics and the family's relational and communication patterns. Issues explored during this two-day program will continue to be explored with participants' family therapist in follow-up weekly sessions.


  • Parents' Group: A free support group where parents can meet to get support and ideas for helping their child through recovery from other parents and staff at ACE. Parents also receive tools for taking care of themselves in order to be of the best help to their child. Although this group is a primarily for parents, other family and loved ones are welcome to attend.

Group Therapy: Groups offered at ACE include process groups, education and skills groups. To view descriptions of each group, click here.

Nutrition Therapy: Participants work with ACE's registered and licensed dieticians to assess current eating behaviors and physical status, to set eating goals and to address common struggles such as meal planning, dining out and body image issues. Below are additional ways participants can address nutrition needs:

  • Individual Nutrition Consultations: 30 to 60 minute sessions occurring with varying frequency depending on the individual's needs.


  • Nutrition Group: a 1 ½ hour group occurring weekly. Please click here for a description.


  • Meal Planning Group: a 45-minute group occurring weekly. Please click here for a description.