Eating Disorder Treatment
in Chicago, Illinois.
Evidence-based care with Dr. Renée D. Rienecke, PhD, FAED — Family-Based Treatment and CBT-E for adolescents, young adults, and adults, delivered by a researcher who has spent more than two and a half decades building the evidence behind them. In person in Chicago, with the rest of our team available to Illinois families via telehealth.
Request a ConsultationEating disorder care from one of the field's own researchers.
Our Chicago location is where Dr. Renée D. Rienecke sees patients — a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, Director of Research at Eating Recovery Center/Pathlight, and author of more than 115 peer-reviewed publications on eating disorders and their treatment. Families here get in-person FBT and CBT-E with a clinician-scientist of national standing, in-home intensives across the Chicago area, the rest of our team by telehealth, and rapid access — a clinician answers every inquiry within one business day.
Call or text: (954) 247-1114
What's available in Chicago
- In-person sessions with Dr. Renée D. Rienecke, PhD, FAED
- FBT and CBT-E for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and atypical anorexia
- Family-based care for adolescents — parents trained and trusted as the primary agents of recovery
- In-home eating disorder intensives across Chicago, the North Shore, and surrounding communities
- Telehealth sessions across Illinois and 40+ PSYPACT states with our licensed psychologists
- Virtual intensives — concentrated treatment blocks billed at each clinician's standard session rate
- Extended assessment sessions with clinical work beginning in the first appointment
- Coordinated care with pediatricians, dietitians, psychiatrists, and schools across Chicagoland
- Rapid access — a clinician responds within one business day
Specialty care from a researcher who helped build the evidence.
Chicago has no shortage of therapists. What is genuinely hard to find — here or anywhere — is a clinician whose eating disorder treatment is anchored in the actual evidence. Rarer still is one who helped produce it.
Dr. Renée D. Rienecke spent nearly a decade at the University of Chicago's eating disorders program working alongside Daniel Le Grange, one of the developers of Family-Based Treatment, during the years when FBT's landmark trials were being run. She went on to serve as founding developer of comprehensive eating disorder programs at the University of Michigan and the Medical University of South Carolina, and today is Director of Research at Eating Recovery Center/Pathlight and an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, has published more than 115 peer-reviewed papers, and wrote a book on the role families play in eating disorder recovery. As faculty at the Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders, she helps train and certify FBT clinicians across the country.
For Chicago families, this means something simple: the treatment approach that academic medical centers point to — delivered in person, by someone who helped write its evidence base, without the institutional friction. Her research has a consistent through-line, and it becomes the through-line of treatment here: parents don't cause eating disorders, and families are not the problem to be managed. They are the most powerful resource a recovery has.
How care is delivered to Chicago patients.
In-Person Eating Disorder Treatment
In-person sessions with Dr. Renée D. Rienecke in Chicago — Family-Based Treatment for adolescents and young adults, and CBT-E when individual treatment is the better fit — for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and atypical anorexia.
Family-Based Treatment for Adolescents
For adolescent eating disorders, Dr. Rienecke works within FBT — parents positioned as the primary agents of recovery. She trained alongside FBT's developers, was a study therapist on the NIMH-funded trials that established it, and serves as faculty at the Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders, which trains and certifies FBT clinicians nationally.
In-Home Eating Disorder Intensives
Concentrated eating disorder intensives delivered in Chicago, Evanston, Northbrook, Oak Park, Downers Grove, the North Shore, and surrounding communities — supported meals, real-world work, and family-based care in the environment where recovery actually has to happen.
Virtual Specialty Therapy
The rest of our clinical team is available to Illinois patients via telehealth — Drs. Zach and Allie Appenzeller, Dr. Kimberly Osborn, Dr. Kaitlin Hill, Dr. Eliza Lanzillo, and Dr. Natalia Levy — plus Nina Jolly's virtual caregiver mentorship. For OCD, anxiety, and families needing additional specialty perspectives. Virtual intensives — billed at each clinician's standard session rate — are available in this format as well.
Our Chicago team.
Dr. Rienecke sees patients in person in Chicago; the rest of our team serves Illinois families via telehealth.
In-Person
Renée D. Rienecke, PhD, FAED
Virtual
Zach Appenzeller, PsyD
Virtual
Allie Appenzeller, PsyD
Virtual
Kimberly Osborn, PhD
Virtual
Kaitlin Hill, PhD
Virtual
Eliza Lanzillo, PhD
Virtual
Natalia Levy, PhD
Virtual
Nina Jolly
Specialty care for what we treat best.
Through Dr. Rienecke's in-person eating disorder care and the broader Institute team's telehealth coverage in Illinois, our full range of specialty care is available to Chicago patients.
In-person across Chicagoland and the North Shore.
Patients travel from across the Chicago area for in-person care.
Questions families in Chicago ask.
Begin treatment this week.
Reach out to schedule a screening conversation. We respond to every inquiry within one business day, and most patients begin treatment within five to seven days.
Request a Consultation