Family Therapist, Eating Disorders

Weekly outpatient therapy isn't always enough, and a trip to the ER isn't the only answer. Patients and their families rely on Compass Health Center when in crisis – every day, we help people overcome depression, anxiety, suicidality, obsessions/compulsions, trauma, chronic pain, and other obstacles in order for our patients to live freely.

About This Role 

Our Family Therapists play a key role in our multi-disciplinary teams and work to ensure synergy across treatment. As a Family Therapist in the Over-18 Eating Disorders Program, you’ll conduct sessions with patients and the people who support them that will aim at reducing accommodation, building support skills, and creating a home environment that sustains recovery after discharge. You’ll also facilitate interpersonal skills groups for patients. If your passion is helping those who are working to support patients, you would be a great addition to our team. 

Compass is proud to be a trailblazer within the future of behavioral health, offering fully virtual PHP/IOP programs to patients across the entire state of Illinois. Our virtual programs meet the needs of modern healthcare, providing flexibility for both patients and clinicians while increasing access to fundamental care. 

What You'll Do: 

Family and Support Sessions 

• Facilitate family and support system sessions for a caseload of assigned adult patients and their loved ones
• Conduct couples and partner sessions where the primary support is a spouse or partner
• Assess role of support system in maintaining or interrupting disordered behaviors
• Provide psychoeducation about eating disorders, co-occurring conditions, and the treatment model
• Identify and target accommodation of eating disorder behavior and co-occurring conditions
• Coach support people in practice skills
• Address diet culture and weight talk within family system
• Work with patients and families to prepare the home food environment for step-down and discharge 

Group Facilitation 

• Facilitate interpersonal and family-focused skills groups within program curriculum
• Support patients in applying interpersonal skills to conversations with family, partners, and support people
• Contribute to the development of caregiver-facing programming as program grows 

Care Coordination 

• Partner with Primary Therapist to align family work with patient’s case formulation and treatment targets
• Contribute clinical observations and insights during interdisciplinary rounds and program meetings
• Communicate with outside providers for continuity of care
• Collaborate with the treatment team in assessing progress and need for higher level of care, step-down, or discharge
• Help family coordinate an effective discharge and aftercare plan 

Program Operations 

• Chart family session content and clinical observations in the electronic medical record
• Participate in weekly family therapy meeting, required program training, fidelity monitoring, supervision, and consultation
• Other duties, as assigned 

Who You Are: 

Credentials and Experience 

• Psychologist or master’s level therapist (required)
• Independently licensed or license-eligible as a psychologist, LCSW, LCPC, or LMFT (required)
• 1+ years clinical work experience post-degree delivering family or couples therapy (strongly preferred)
• Experience treating eating disorders (preferred)
• Experience treating OCD, anxiety, PTSD, and/or depression (preferred)
• Have experience in a PHP, IOP, residential, or inpatient setting 

Skills and Approach (preferred) 

• Working knowledge of conceptualization of eating disorder treatment and co-occurring conditions
• Able to work with adult patients and their support systems, balancing family involvement against patient autonomy and consent
• Able to identify family accommodation and coach support people to withdraw it without escalating conflict
• Able to hold a validating stance towards caregivers while maintaining clear expectations of them
• Comfortable delivering both family sessions and group programming
• Practices from weight-inclusive framework
• Adopts “all foods fit” approach towards clinical nutrition
• Works within defined curriculum and fidelity expectations rather than an idiosyncratic model
• Seeks and uses supervision and consultation 

We are committed to a fair and equitable work environment. The expected compensation range for this role is below. This range includes multiple career path levels across the organization; where you fall in the range is dependent upon a number of factors including, but not limited to, your years of experience, type of experience, location, and education/certifications. Compass reserves the right to update these ranges.

Compensation$55,000—$90,000 USD

We know job descriptions can be intimidating, so if this sounds like an opportunity for you, please don't hesitate to apply! 

Who We Are 

Compass Health Center is a recognized leader in crisis-level mental health, bringing passion, connection, and patient-centered care to the Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient space (PHP/IOP). Based in Chicagoland, we serve hundreds of patients every day, ranging from ages 5 through adulthood, in our onsite facilities or through our flourishing virtual programming. Compass fills a critical gap between outpatient and inpatient care through an intermediate level of Behavioral Healthcare.  

A few more things we want you to know: our values are super important to us, and hopefully will be to you, too. Cultural humility, teamwork, continuous improvement, connection, patient centered care, passion, innovation, and agility should be your power sources. Joining Compass is an opportunity to feel fulfilled through a joint mission towards healing our communities. 

Benefits & Perks 

We know that you will be dedicated to your purpose here. We look at that investment as a two-way street. We are proud to offer plenty of space for growth, and opportunities to pursue continuous development within our organization. 

For eligible positions, our other benefits include: comprehensive medical/dental/vision plans, 401k program with company matching, generous PTO (including competitive parental leave after 1 year of employment), and continuous training through CEU seminars and volunteering opportunities.  

What’s Next? 

Compass is committed to cultivating diverse and dynamic teams who exude passion for their craft, so whether or not you check all the boxes, we encourage you to apply – we’d be grateful to hear from you!