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Contact Arizona Connection Counseling

Let’s make the first step feel a little easier.

Finding the right therapist matters, yet we get that reaching out for support can feel overwhelming. So whether you have a question, want help finding the right therapist, or are ready to book your first session, we’re here to walk with you through the process—you’re not alone here!

Thanks for visiting Arizona Connection Counseling.

We’re a licensed counseling agency with offices in Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale, and we serve clients statewide through secure telehealth sessions.

Our team of experienced therapists specializes in research-backed methods like EMDR and EFT, offering expert care for individuals, couples, families, and groups. If you’re struggling with relationship issues, trauma, anxiety, eating concerns, grief, or life transitions—we’re here to help.

How To Reach Us

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Back-office Hours:
  • We return messages Monday–Friday between 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM MST
Therapist Hours:
  • By appointment only – times vary by therapist
    Generally between 8am-7pm Monday to Friday (limited Saturday availability)

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What to Expect Next

Once you submit your form, our friendly intake coordinator will review your message and reach out to answer any questions or help schedule your first appointment. We can also guide you in finding the right therapist for your needs and goals—so you don’t have to figure it out alone.

Mesa Office Locations

Gilbert Office Location

Scottsdale Office Location

Eating Disorders - It's Not About the Food

By Kelly Lopez

If it’s not about the food, what is it really about?

The eating disorder serves a function, it does a job. Despite the problems an eating disorder creates, it is an effort to cope, shield against, communicate, and solve problems. Behaviors may be a way to establish a sense of power or control, self-worth, strength, and containment. Bringing may be used to numb pain. Purging may be a way to release emotions. When one cannot cope in healthy ways, adaptive functions (behaviors) are created to ensure a sense of safety, security, and control.
According to Carolyn Costin*, some of the “adaptive functions that eating disorder behaviors commonly serve are”:
  • Comfort, soothing, nurturance
  • Numbing, sedation, distraction
  • Attention, a cry for help
  • Discharge of tension, anger, rebellion
  • Predictability, structure, identity
  • Self-punishment or punishment of "the body"
  • Self-cleansing or self-purification
  • Protection or safety (through creation of a small or large body)
  • Avoidance of intimacy
  • Proof for self-blame instead of blaming others (for exampl, abusers)
It’s not about the food, it’s a way of coping with low self-esteem, negative emotions, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, unstable home, difficulty resolving conflict and much more.
*Costin, Carolyn. The Eating Disorder Sourcebook: A Comprehensive Guide to the Causes, Treatments and Prevention of Eating Disorders. 3rd. edition, McGraw Hill, 2007.
Fuller, Kristen. “Eating Disorders: It’s Not All about Food.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 22 Mar. 2017

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-is-state-mind/201703/eating-disorders-it-s-not-all-about-food