Eating Disorder & Disordered Eating Therapy in Orange County

Supportive Therapy for Eating Disorders & Body Image Concerns (Virtual in California)

If you’re struggling with food, body image, or control around eating, you don’t have to hold it all together alone. I’m Marissa Honjiyo, a depth-oriented relational therapist who specializes in eating disorders, anxiety, and relationship patterns. I offer therapy virtually to clients in Orange County and across California.

If you’d like to see if we’re a fit, you can schedule a consultation.

Eating Disorder & Body Image Therapy

You may be here because food takes up more space in your mind than you want it to. Maybe eating feels stressful, emotional, or out of control. Maybe your relationship with your body feels tense, critical, or exhausting. Or maybe you can function on the outside—capable, responsible, high-achieving—while privately feeling stuck in a cycle of rules, shame, and second-guessing.

Eating struggles don’t always look obvious. Sometimes they show up as “discipline,” “being healthy,” “having high standards,” or “just wanting to feel better.” And sometimes they live quietly in the background—constant mental tracking, repeated promises to “start over,” or a sense that you can’t relax unless you’re in control.

In therapy, we don’t reduce you to behaviors or a diagnosis. We slow down and get curious about what’s happening beneath the surface—so change becomes possible in a real, lasting way.

This can be a space to name what you’ve been carrying alone: the pressure, the self-criticism, the fear of losing control, the voice that keeps moving the goalpost, and the part of you that’s tired of living this way.

You might recognize yourself in these experiences

You might relate to some of the following:

• Thinking about food, eating, weight, or your body throughout the day, even when you wish you wouldn’t

• Feeling stuck in cycles of restriction, overeating, binge eating, purging, or compensating

• Feeling like you can’t trust yourself around food—like it’s either “controlled” or “chaotic”

• Using food rules, control, or exercise to manage stress, anxiety, overwhelm, or difficult emotions

• Avoiding eating around others, feeling anxious about meals, or needing rigid rules to feel safe

• Feeling disconnected from hunger and fullness cues—or not trusting your body’s signals

• Feeling intense guilt, shame, or self-criticism after eating

• Constantly comparing your body to others, checking mirrors/photos, or feeling at war with your appearance

• Feeling afraid to loosen your grip on patterns around food, even when they’re exhausting

• Feeling like your worth rises and falls with productivity, discipline, or how your body looks

You don’t need to check every box. If this is taking up mental space, limiting your life, or keeping you stuck in shame, that’s enough to deserve support.

Eating concerns are often about more than food

For many people, disordered eating is not simply about food. It’s about what food has been forced to manage.

Control can become a way to quiet anxiety. Rules can become a way to feel safe. Restriction can become a way to feel powerful when life feels uncertain. Bingeing can become a way to soothe, discharge, or escape. Purging or compensating can become a way to erase a feeling that feels intolerable. Body focus can become the most “acceptable” place to put pain you don’t know how to name yet.

In other words: these patterns often make sense in context.

That doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. It means we don’t approach them with blame. We approach them with curiosity—because curiosity creates room for change.

In depth-oriented therapy, we pay attention to the “why” beneath what keeps repeating. Often, eating struggles are intertwined with perfectionism, self-worth, family-of-origin dynamics, trauma, relational patterns, and the pressure to appear fine. When we understand what your relationship with food and your body has been doing for you, we can begin to build new ways of coping—ones that don’t require you to stay at war with yourself.

What I help clients with

Clients come to this work for a range of concerns, including:

• Disordered eating therapy for chronic dieting, food rules, “starting over,” or fear-based restriction

• Body image therapy for body shame, constant comparison, mirror checking, or harsh self-criticism

• Binge eating support (including emotional eating and feeling out of control around food)

• Bulimia and compensatory patterns (purging, over-exercising, “making up for” eating)

• Anorexia-related patterns (restriction, fear of weight change, obsessive food/body thoughts)

• Orthorexia/clean eating rigidity (anxiety-driven “health” rules that become restrictive)

• Compulsive exercise or movement used primarily for control, regulation, or self-punishment

• Perfectionism, anxiety, and self-criticism that fuel eating and body-related pressure

• Disconnection from emotions and body cues (numbness, shutdown, difficulty identifying feelings)

If you’re unsure whether you “qualify,” you don’t need a perfect label. If it’s shrinking your life, it matters.

How therapy can help

Therapy offers a compassionate space to slow down and begin listening to yourself in a different way. Instead of pushing harder or trying to force change through willpower, we focus on understanding and creating enough safety to be honest about what’s happening.

Together, we can work to:

• Understand the emotional and relational roots of your eating patterns

• Reduce shame and self-blame around food and body image

• Notice triggers earlier and respond with more choice (stress, criticism, loneliness, transitions, conflict)

• Build a more trusting relationship with hunger/fullness and internal signals

• Develop ways to cope with emotions that don’t rely on control, avoidance, or self-punishment

• Explore self-worth and identity—especially if worth has become tied to achievement, productivity, or appearance

• Shift all-or-nothing thinking that keeps you trapped in cycles

• Stay curious rather than critical, so you can relate to yourself differently over time

A big part of healing is moving from fighting yourself to understanding yourself. When your internal world becomes more understandable and less shame-filled, the patterns often loosen—not because you forced them to, but because they no longer feel like the only way to survive.

What our work looks like

My approach is relational and depth-oriented. That means we pay attention to patterns, emotions, and experiences as they arise—both in your life and within the therapy relationship itself. We work collaboratively, and we pace the work with care. There’s room for ambivalence: the part of you that wants relief and the part of you that’s afraid of letting go of control.

In sessions, we may explore questions like:

• What does control around food protect you from feeling?

• When did your relationship with your body shift—and what was happening then?

• What feelings show up before the urge to restrict, binge, purge, or compensate?

• What does the “eating disorder voice” say—and what is it trying to prevent?

• What would it mean to live with more ease in your body, without constant monitoring?

• How have relationships, culture, family dynamics, or past experiences shaped this?

We also pay attention to the present moment: how your nervous system responds to stress, closeness, pressure, or uncertainty—and how food and body control may be one of the ways your system tries to regulate. Over time, therapy can help you build a steadier internal base so you’re not relying on the same strategies to get through the day.

Virtual therapy (telehealth) in California

Because I offer therapy virtually, you don’t need to commute, sit in traffic, or rearrange your life around getting to an office. For many clients, telehealth makes it easier to start—especially if you’re busy, privately struggling, or unsure you’re ready to be seen.

Virtual therapy can still be deep, connected, and emotionally meaningful. The heart of this work is the relationship and the safety we build together.

A note on safety and level of care

Eating disorders can range from painful-but-manageable patterns to medically serious conditions. Therapy can be a strong fit for many people, and there are times when additional support is important.

If there are signs of medical risk (fainting, chest pain, significant restriction, frequent purging, rapid weight change, or other concerning physical symptoms), I may recommend coordinating with a physician and/or dietitian. If you’re not sure what level of support you need, we can talk about it in a consultation. The goal is simple: appropriate care and real support—not doing this alone.

You’re not broken, and you don’t have to do this alone

If you’re tired of feeling stuck in the same cycles, unsure how to change, or longing for a more peaceful relationship with food and your body, therapy can help. You don’t need to wait until things are “bad enough.” If it’s taking up space in your mind and limiting your life, it’s enough.

[Schedule a Consultation]
A first conversation can help you decide if this feels like the right next step.