Every group at Aurora Center NYC begins with a mindful meditation. Group Therapy is usually comprised of 4 to 10 group members who are all working on a common issue. It provides an opportunity to connect with others who are experiencing similar conflicts, while working together to support each other as individual growth and insight is achieved. Aurora Center NYC offers a rotating schedule of outpatient groups for the treatment of eating disorders. Prior group therapy foci have included Enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT-E); Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT); Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT); Body Image & Shame Resilience; Sex & Relationships; Parents As Partners; 9 Dimensions of Wellness; and EmobodiED Recovery Yoga.

Group Therapy sessions range from 75-120 minute weekly sessions.

Contact Us for more information and to register.

SUMMER 2019 Groups

EMPOWER Group for Binge & Emotional Eating
Thursday's 6:30-8:30pm
Begins Thursday July 11th 2019
Do you struggle with emotional eating, binge eating or compulsive overeating? 

Have You Ever: 

  • Eaten in secret or tried to hide the amount or type of food you were eating from others?

  • Felt shame or guilt about what you are eating? 

  • Weighed yourself multiple times per day? 

  • Consumed large amounts of food in one sitting while feeling out of control?

  • Stood in front of a mirror pinching, pulling or otherwise examining your body shape appearance?

  • Lost and gained and lost and gained weight in a years-to-decades-long cycle? 

Goals of EMPOWER Group for Binge & Emotional Eating:

  • Decrease binge eating, compulsive overeating and stop bingeing completely!

  • Establish a regular and sustainable eating pattern

  • Stop restricting or dieting/feeling deprived

  • Recognize unhelpful thinking patterns and learn coping skills and self-soothing skills to manage them 

  • Improve attitudes toward weight and shape & recognize your value beyond your body

  • Increase self-esteem and interpersonal skills

  • Improve mood & social connectedness

  • Decrease feelings of shame, isolation, & loneliness


The 8 week EMPOWER Group for Binge & Emotional Eating provides two evening hours of intensive treatment and support. During the 45 minute mindful meal, participants will work on Making Friends With Food, by getting in touch with internal sensations of hunger, fullness and satiety. The supported meal offers a space to practice pacing, portioning, and balanced eating, while dispelling food myths, challenging harmful thoughts/cognitive distortions, increasing body trust, and self-empowerment. Following the meal, a 75 minute psychotherapy process group will provide psychoeducation, tools, support and community to actively address the thoughts, feelings and behaviors keeping you stuck in a binge cycle.

Binge Eating Disorder is the most common eating disorder in the United States, impacting approximately 2.8 million Americans and an estimated 3.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men. Despite BED being the most common eating disorder, many individuals have not received specialized treatment. 

BED is characterized by eating abnormal amounts of food while feeling unable to stop and is sometimes referred to as “compulsive overeating.” Although BED can occur in those who are normal/typical weight, as the cycle of binge eating cycle progresses, it often leads to unwanted weight gain and obesity which can indirectly fuel further compulsive overeating. This eating pattern is usually intertwined with a turbulent emotional mixture of shame, guilt, depression and anxiety. These negative feelings often lead the person struggling with BED to continue to use food to cope, creating a vicious cycle. 

Recovery In Color: A Group for People of Color With Eating Disorders
Thursday's 6:30-8pm
Start Date TBD
Are you a person of color who is concerned about your relationship with food and your body? Have you been diagnosed with an eating disorder or suspect you may have one?

Have You Ever:

  • Restricted your caloric or food intake?

  • Eaten in secret or tried to hide the amount or type of food you were eating from others?

  • Made yourself vomit after eating or used laxatives as a form of weight control?

  • Felt shame or guilt about what you are eating?

  • Weighed yourself multiple times per day?

  • Eaten large amounts of food in one sitting while feeling out of control?

  • Stood in front of a mirror pinching, pulling or otherwise examining your body shape appearance?

  • Lost and gained and lost and gained weight in a years-to-decades-long cycle?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may have an eating disorder.

You Are Not Alone! Eating disorders do not discriminate, and appear in similar rates across all ethnic groups, but historically, conversations around and spaces for recovery from an eating disorder have felt exclusionary for people of color. Many of these individuals go undiagnosed and without treatment.

Representation Matters: “Recovery In Color” is a group aimed at providing information, support, recovery tools, and hope to those who have been left out of the treatment conversation. This group will provide a safe space for individuals of color to discuss and process their personal experiences with disordered eating, eating disorders, and eating disorder treatment in mostly white spaces while receiving support from peers in similar situations.

This 8-week group will cover topics including: Eating Disorders in Marginalized Populations; Internalized Racism and Acculturative Stress; Intersectionality; Eating Disorder Diagnosis & Treatment Experiences as a person of color; Culture of Food & Its Impact on Eating Disorders; Cultural Considerations of Family & Friends; Body Image; Communication Skills/Self-Advocacy and more. These topics will be explored with sensitivity toward the lived experience of each person's unique racial, ethnic, and cultural identities.
This group is available to individuals who identify as a racial or ethnic minority. All gender identities and sexual orientations are welcome!

Radically Open DBT:
Tuesday's 6:30-8:30pm
Start Date TBA
Radically Open DBT is a new evidence-based** treatment for Anorexia Nervosa, and for people who experience emotional over-control – a hallmark symptom for many with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, anxiety disorders, and chronic depression.

Do you identify with any of these characteristics?

  • Perfectionistic

  • Being highly detail-oriented

  • Having trouble letting go of mistakes

  • Avoiding risks

  • Not liking new things or experiences

  • Having a high sensitivity to feeling threatened

  • Not easily impressed by rewards or compliments

  • Planning everything

  • Having trouble with transitions/change

  • Feeling anxious or angry when things don't go according to plan

  • Often feel lonely but have a hard time connecting with others or maintaining emotionally intimate relationships

Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT) is a new form of treatment that can help overcontrolled individuals achieve a happier, balanced and more socially connected life.

RO-DBT neuroregulatory theory RO-DBT targets three areas including:

  • Receptivity and Openness — RO-DBT helps individuals become more receptive to new experiences, and feedback, allowing for exploration, learning and growth

  • Flexibility — RO-DBT helps those with overcontrol develop a sense of flexibility — a key to living a full life is being able to adapt to changing environmental conditions aka "go with the flow"

  • Intimacy and Connectedness — RO-DBT teaches emotional recognition and emotional expression — these important skills help us facilitate healthy and rewarding relationships allowing for connection and a reduction in loneliness

The RO-DBT group will actively teach skills to increase Receptivity and Openness, Flexibility, and Intimacy and Connectedness, including body posture, gestures, and facial expressions, activate brain regions that increase social safety responses that function to automatically enhance the open-minded and flexible social-signaling, which are crucial for establishing long-term intimate bonds and social connectedness.

Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT) addresses three different areas that can help overcontrolled individuals achieve a richer and more rewarding emotional life. One area in particular is to help overcontrolled individuals reduce loneliness and connect to others by addressing the following areas of deficit.

**In Clinical Trials RO-DBT was associated with significant improvements in weight gain, reductions in eating disorder symptoms, decreases in eating-disorder related psychopathology and increases in eating disorder-related quality of life in a severely underweight sample. (Lynch, et al, 2013).

EmpowerED Self Group for Binge and Emotional Eating:
Dates & Times TBD
Our EmpowerED Self Group for Binge and Emotional Eating is run on a CBT model based on the work of Dr. James E. Mitchell and Dr. Michael Devlin, and our group leaders have received advanced training in this modality. This group is excellent for anyone with Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder, emotional or compulsive overeating, emotion regulation issues, and interpersonal difficulties. The group focuses on providing practical skills to apply during binge and emotional eating episodes, with exploration of the instincts, thoughts, feelings and behaviors that have been keeping you stuck in patterns that don’t work.