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Eating Disorder Treatment for Portsmouth, NH

Every clinician at Harborside brings an extensive background in treating eating disorders and the conditions that tend to travel alongside them, anxiety, depression, trauma, obsessive patterns. That depth matters, because eating disorders are rarely just about food. It means a client in Portsmouth, NH gets a care team uniquely suited to a complicated presentation, not a generalist doing their best with a specialty they see occasionally.

Portsmouth and the surrounding Seacoast towns draw people who are deliberate about their choices, whether they settled here generations ago or moved recently for the quality of life. Many of the people we work with in Portsmouth, New Hampshire are managing high-functioning routines, demanding jobs, and a strong sense of privacy about what they are going through. Care that fits into that life, without requiring a waiting room or a workday off, is part of how we approach eating disorder treatment here.

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Eating Disorder Treatment for people in Portsmouth, NH

Harborside is based in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, and delivers care by secure video to patients across New Hampshire, including Portsmouth. You do not travel to us. You need a private space, a stable internet connection, and a phone, tablet, or computer with a camera.

A typical initial appointment runs longer than a follow-up, since there is more history to cover. Follow-up sessions are shorter and scheduled at an interval your clinician sets based on what you need, sometimes weekly, sometimes further apart. If medication is part of your care, prescriptions are sent electronically to the pharmacy of your choice in Portsmouth or wherever you fill them. Therapy sessions follow a similar rhythm, with a consistent day and time so care has structure without requiring you to leave home or work.

The video format tends to suit eating disorder care well. Clients are often more candid about food, body image, and related habits from their own space than in a clinical office, and the consistency of a standing appointment matters more for this work than the setting does.

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How telehealth care actually works

We work with adults managing restrictive eating, binge eating, cycles of overeating and restriction, body image preoccupation, and disordered patterns around exercise or food control. Many clients also carry a co-occurring condition, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive patterns, or a history of trauma, and treating the eating disorder in isolation rarely addresses the whole picture. We look at the full clinical context: mood, sleep, medical history, and the relationships and pressures in a person’s life that reinforce these patterns.

Care is built for adults who are medically stable and able to participate in outpatient treatment delivered by video. It is not a substitute for emergency or inpatient medical care when a condition requires that level of monitoring.

What we treat

The first appointment is a conversation, not a checklist. Your clinician will ask about your history with food and body image, your current patterns, your medical background, and anything else affecting your day-to-day functioning, sleep, mood, relationships, work. If medication management is appropriate, that gets discussed as part of the same conversation. If therapy is the right fit, or both together, your clinician will talk through what that looks like and how sessions would be structured going forward.

You leave that first appointment with a plan, not a diagnosis dropped on you and no next step.

What the first appointment involves

Medication management and functional psychiatry at Harborside are performed by psychiatric nurse practitioners: Rachel Egan, RN PMHNP-BC, who is also Harborside’s clinical director, Emily Pardue, RN PMHNP-BC, and Kirstin Ritchie, RN PMHNP-BC. Each is qualified to evaluate, diagnose, and prescribe for mental health conditions, including the medical and psychiatric complexity that often accompanies an eating disorder. Full bios and credentials for each of them are on the team page.

Therapy and eating disorder-focused clinical work are delivered by our licensed therapy team: Hannah Legesse, LICSW, Tori Mahoney, LMHC, Jacquelyn Duford, LCMHC, ATR, and Lexie Carchedi, LCSW. Jacquelyn is also a registered art therapist, which gives some clients another route into material that is hard to talk about directly. Between the prescribing and therapy teams, a client working with Harborside on an eating disorder has access to both medical management and sustained clinical therapy, coordinated as one plan rather than two separate tracks.

Who our clinicians are

Harborside is a private-pay practice and does not bill insurance directly for appointments. Current fees for an initial and a follow-up appointment are listed on the pricing page, and questions about cost can be answered before anything is booked.

What it costs

If you are in Portsmouth and considering care for yourself or someone you support, the next step is scheduling an initial appointment. You can look through clinician backgrounds on the team page first if that helps you decide who to book with, or start with whoever has the next available time and let the clinician guide next steps from there.

Getting started

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For mental health crisis support, call or text 988. Harborside does not provide emergency or after-hours care.

This page is educational and does not constitute medical advice. It does not create a provider-patient relationship. Eating disorders carry medical risk, and anyone with concerns about acute physical symptoms should seek immediate medical evaluation. [CITATION: National Eating Disorders Association or NIMH page on eating disorders, for readers wanting further information on risk and symptoms]

Reviewed by Lexie Carchedi, LCSW. Last reviewed: {LAST_REVIEWED}.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does Harborside treat eating disorders that haven't been formally diagnosed?

Yes. Many clients start therapy for a difficult relationship with food or body image before, or without, a formal diagnosis.

Yes, when a client is already working with one. Coordination is discussed during intake and ongoing treatment.

No. Eating disorder therapy at Harborside is talk therapy. Medical monitoring, lab work, and meal planning are handled by outside providers and coordinated with as needed.

Clients who want medication management can be connected with one of Harborside’s psychiatric nurse practitioners.

No. Outpatient therapy isn’t appropriate for every situation. If a higher level of care is needed, your therapist will discuss that directly rather than continuing with weekly sessions alone.

Currently, eating disorder treatment at Harborside is available to clients located in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

If you need help right now

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For mental health crisis support, call or text 988. Harborside Psychiatrics does not provide emergency or after-hours care.

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