OCD & Eating Disorder Therapy + Autism & ADHD Diagnostic Evaluations in Maryland, Virginia, & Florida | Nationwide Recovery Coaching + Patient Advocacy | Book your free 15-minute consultation today!
Side Quest Psychotherapy provides neuroaffirming therapy and autism and ADHD evaluations in the Washington, DC–Maryland–Virginia (DMV) area, with in-person appointments in College Park, Maryland. We offer telehealth for Maryland, Virginia, and Florida residents. Nationwide recovery coaching, patient advocacy, and clinical consultation services are also available.
If you’ve spent years trying treatments that didn’t quite fit — or being told you were “too complex,” “treatment-resistant,” or “not ready” — we want you to know something first:
We’re glad you’re here.
Much of standard treatment for eating disorders, ARFID, OCD, and anxiety was built around a neurotypical model — one that assumes consistent motivation, predictable responses to structure, and symptoms with a clear psychological origin. When a person’s brain and body don’t follow those patterns, it’s easy to feel misunderstood or blamed for not improving in the “right” way.
You’re not the problem. The model just wasn’t designed with you in mind.
At Side Quest Psychotherapy, we intentionally support the presentations that standard care often misses: autistic and ADHD children, adolescents, and adults; people with PDA profiles; those navigating OCD alongside an eating disorder; sensory-based feeding differences in ARFID; and individuals with neuroimmune conditions like PANS and PANDAS whose experiences have been dismissed for years.
If you’ve been told your situation is “too complicated,” if past care left you feeling unseen, or if you’ve been carrying the weight of figuring this out on your own — you don’t have to do that here.
You belong here. And we’re truly glad you found your way to us.
🎲 You’re autistic, have ADHD, or a PDA profile — and eating disorder treatment has never accounted for that
🎲 You have OCD and an eating disorder, and most therapists treat one or the other — not both at the same time
🎲 You’re an adult who has always had a complicated relationship with food, textures, or eating — and you’re only now finding language for it
🎲 You’ve been told you’re “too complex,” “not sick enough,” or “not ready for treatment”
🎲 You want HAES-aligned, weight-neutral care — care that doesn’t treat your body as a problem to solve
🎲 Your child has extremely limited eating, and approaches that rely on pressure or rewards have made things worse
🎲 You or your child has PANS or PANDAS — and you’ve spent years being told the symptoms aren’t real
🎲 You watched your child change overnight and keep getting referred somewhere else
🎲 You’re LGBTQIA+ and exhausted by healthcare that doesn’t see your whole self
🎲 You need more than a weekly therapy hour — you need real-world support and someone who will advocate in the systems that have failed you
If you’ve spent your life wondering why everything feels harder than it looks for other people — or if you’ve been assessed before and told you “don’t seem autistic” — this evaluation was designed specifically for you. Side Quest Psychotherapy specializes in late-identified and camouflaged presentations of autism and ADHD, with evaluations available in Maryland, Virginia, and Florida.
Most autism and ADHD assessments were designed around a very specific presentation — one that research now recognizes as incomplete. The tools, the criteria, and the clinical training have historically centered hyperactive young boys with obvious external symptoms. If you don’t fit that picture, the system has often missed you entirely — or told you that you couldn’t be autistic because you made eye contact, had friends, did well in school, or learned to hold it together in public.
We specialize in evaluating camouflaged and late-identified presentations. This includes autistic women, girls, and people assigned female at birth who developed sophisticated masking strategies early in life; adults who were told for decades that they were anxious, sensitive, or “too much” without anyone looking deeper; people with PDA profiles whose demand avoidance was misread as oppositional behavior or anxiety; twice-exceptional (2e) individuals whose giftedness masked the cognitive and executive functioning differences underneath; and people with ADHD whose inattentive, internalized, or highly compensated presentation was never flagged because they were getting by.
Our evaluations use the MIGDAS-2 (Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum, Second Edition) — a tool specifically designed to capture the full range of autistic experience, including presentations that don’t fit traditional diagnostic profiles — alongside the DIVA-5 for ADHD assessment and other standardized measures selected for the individual. We approach the evaluation as a collaborative process, not a gatekeeping one. You are not trying to prove anything. We are trying to build an accurate, affirming picture of how your brain works.
Evaluations are available for adults and adolescents in Maryland, Virginia, and Florida. Reports include a detailed clinical narrative, diagnostic impressions, and specific accommodation recommendations you can use with employers, schools, and healthcare providers.
Learn more about neuroaffirming autism and ADHD evaluations →
If rigid meal plans and structured food protocols have made your eating disorder worse rather than better, there’s a reason.
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) — or what many in the community describe as a pervasive drive for autonomy — changes how eating disorder care needs to work. Rigid structure, food rules, and external control often backfire, escalating threat responses and making nourishment less accessible for people navigating anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and other disordered eating patterns.
Our work begins with the nervous system. Using a polyvagal-informed, sensory-based lens, we understand food avoidance, bingeing, purging, or rigidity as protective responses to perceived threat — not defiance or lack of motivation. We integrate IFS-informed parts work to support curiosity and compassion toward these protective patterns rather than power struggles.
Within a low-demand, autonomy-first framework, we draw from Unified Treatment for Eating Disorders, Enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT-E), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), adapted to support a PDA nervous system. Care is collaborative and paced around safety and consent. When medical risk is present, we follow the Academy for Eating Disorders medical care standards and coordinate monitoring through a harm-reduction lens, prioritizing stability and access to nourishment over compliance-based targets. Our work is HAES-aligned, centering dignity, body respect, and sustainable care.
This intersection is widely underserved in eating disorder treatment — and it’s a specialty we’ve built intentionally.
When OCD and an eating disorder are happening at the same time, treating only one of them rarely works. If you’ve been through treatment and kept struggling — or if your symptoms have never quite fit the standard picture — OCD may be a bigger part of the picture than anyone has named yet.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder can fundamentally shape how eating disorders develop and persist. Intrusive fears, disgust responses, and rigid “right vs. wrong” thinking often drive food avoidance, restriction, or ritualized eating — and the line between OCD and an eating disorder can be genuinely difficult to find, even for experienced clinicians.
Wellness culture makes this harder. The language of “clean eating,” “gut health,” elimination diets, and moralized food hierarchies provides socially sanctioned cover for what are often OCD-driven patterns. Health anxiety — fear of contamination, illness, or bodily harm through food — can masquerade as informed nutritional choices. Orthorexia, where the pursuit of “pure” or “safe” foods becomes increasingly rule-bound and consuming, sits directly at this intersection. These presentations are rarely named accurately, and people often arrive having been praised for their “discipline” long after the pattern became harmful.
Our work is HAES-aligned and rooted in Body Trust® — meaning we never use weight, body size, or dietary “optimization” as treatment targets. We treat the OCD cycle itself: the intrusive thought, the anxiety, the compulsion, and the short-term relief that keeps the pattern locked in. We draw from Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT), Metacognitive Therapy (MCT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), and the Mastery Approach for disgust sensitivity, alongside eating disorder–specific treatment. For children and adolescents, we incorporate Family-Based Treatment (FBT) when clinically appropriate and are trained in Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) to help caregivers reduce accommodation and support lasting change.
Learn more about our approach to OCD and anxiety treatment →
If you’ve spent your life being called picky, pressured to “just try it,” or dismissed by providers who couldn’t explain why eating feels the way it does in your body — you deserve care that starts by believing you.
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is widely misunderstood in both children and adults. Eating is not simply a matter of behavior or willpower; it is shaped by sensory processing, nervous system safety, and the ability to interpret internal body signals. When these factors are overlooked, standard approaches can leave people feeling blamed, overwhelmed, or alone in their struggle.
Our role is to provide steady, nonjudgmental support while helping you make sense of what eating feels like in your body.
We work alongside you to understand sensory experiences — texture, temperature, taste, smell, appearance, and the environment around meals — and to strengthen interoceptive awareness, including recognizing cues such as hunger, fullness, nausea, pain, or shutdown. Many neurodivergent people have learned to distrust or ignore these signals; together, we rebuild that connection with curiosity and care.
Rather than pushing compliance, we guide you in creating conditions where your nervous system can feel safer around food. This includes emotional support during moments of distress, co-regulation strategies for overwhelming sensory input, and collaborative problem-solving when eating feels stuck or scary.
Our approach is grounded in responsive feeding. We follow your cues, reduce pressure, and move at a pace that protects trust — because safety and attunement are what allow flexibility to grow. We are trained in CBT-AR and SPACE-ARFID and draw on those frameworks when they are helpful, but our work is always shaped by sensory-informed, autonomy-supportive care.
For adults, this means having a therapist who takes your sensory reality seriously and helps you build trust with your body instead of overriding it. We support you in reducing shame, navigating social and environmental barriers to eating, and expanding flexibility in ways that feel sustainable.
For parents of autistic or PDA children, this means you are not expected to force progress alone. We help you understand your child’s sensory profile, support co-regulation at mealtimes, and guide you through reducing conflict and anxiety — so meals can become more predictable, safer, and less adversarial.
You don’t have to navigate these challenges without support. We’re here to help you understand your body, reduce fear, and move toward a relationship with food that feels safer and more compassionate.
Learn more about how we approach ARFID and feeding differences →
If your child changed seemingly overnight — sudden OCD, extreme food restriction, emotional dysregulation, or behavioral shifts that appeared out of nowhere — and you’ve been told it’s “just anxiety” or “just behavioral,” we want you to know: you may be right that something more is happening.
Some of our clients are navigating mental health symptoms that are not purely psychological in origin — they are rooted in, or significantly shaped by, immune dysregulation, neuroimmune activation, connective tissue differences, or post-infectious processes that the mental health system rarely knows how to hold.
We work with children, adolescents, and adults affected by PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) and PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections) — conditions characterized by sudden-onset OCD, anxiety, restrictive eating, and behavioral changes following infection, most often strep or Lyme. Families who find us have often spent years being told their child’s symptoms are purely psychological, purely behavioral, or simply not real. We take these presentations seriously and work collaboratively with medical providers to support the whole picture.
We also support people living with “All The Things” — complex, chronic conditions such as hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Long COVID, post-treatment Lyme disease, ME/CFS, endometriosis, and other autoimmune or post-infectious illnesses — where mental health symptoms are inseparable from physical ones. These conditions frequently co-occur (the hEDS/MCAS/POTS trifecta is well documented) and are especially misunderstood when they intersect with disordered eating, ARFID, chronic nausea, GI distress, sensory sensitivities, and medical trauma. Despite this overlap, many providers lack training in this medical-psychiatric complexity, leaving clients under-supported, dismissed, or misdiagnosed.
Our approach coordinates care with medical teams, respects the limits of what therapy can and cannot do for biologically-driven symptoms, and centers the person’s own understanding of their body. We do not assume symptoms are psychosomatic, we do not dismiss what the medical system has dismissed, and we do not treat complexity as a reason to refer out.
Learn more about our approach to PANS/PANDAS and medical complexity →
Healing isn’t a solo quest. We team up with your doctor, psychiatrist, dietitian, occupational therapist, speech-language pathologist, and other members of your care team so you have a whole party backing you on your journey. Because the best outcomes happen when everyone working with you is actually working together.
Therapy happens once or twice a week. Life happens constantly — and the hardest moments rarely schedule themselves. Our recovery coaching, grounded in lived experience, meets you where it counts: the hard meal, the grocery store, the dorm room. And when the weekend comes, you won’t face it unprepared — we make sure you have a plan in place and debrief on Monday. Available nationwide.
From gender-affirming letters written without gatekeeping, to intersex healthcare navigation, to IEP and 504 support — we show up in the systems that too often fail neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, fat, and multiply-marginalized people. Whether you’re fighting weight stigma in medical settings, navigating a broken school system, or just trying to get care that doesn’t harm you, you shouldn’t have to fight alone.
Side Quest Psychotherapy is currently accepting new clients in Maryland, Virginia, and Florida for telehealth therapy, autism and ADHD evaluations, and eating disorder support. Recovery coaching and patient advocacy are available to clients nationwide.
A free 15-minute consultation is the first step — no pressure, no commitment. We’ll help you figure out whether we’re the right fit and what kind of support makes the most sense for where you are right now.
Hi, I’m Jenna!I founded Side Quest Psychotherapy because I know how isolating it can feel to go through therapy and still feel misunderstood. Many of our clients — especially those who are neurodivergent — have been labeled “non-compliant” or “treatment-resistant,” when in reality the care they received simply didn’t fit their needs.
That experience shapes the work we do here. At Side Quest, our team focuses on what truly helps: building connection, honoring autonomy, and creating safety while addressing the barriers that stand in the way.
Together, we support clients and families in stepping out of burnout, loosening the grip of OCD and anxiety, making peace with food and body, and reclaiming a sense of worth that isn’t tied to productivity or perfectionism. Most importantly, you can expect to feel seen, understood, and supported in ways that honor who you are.
📊 Evidence-Based Approaches
📖 Lived and Clinical Expertise
🔍 Curiosity over Pathology
🛠 Care Designed for You
🌿 Nervous System Informed
🏳️🌈 Identity Affirming
💎 Health at Every Size® and Body Trust®
Behavior charts, token ecoanomies, or compliance models Weight-centric or food hierarchy approaches Coercion, shame, or “quick-fix” diagnoses Detached “expert” vibes
Your side quest for neuroaffirming support starts here.
Roll for initiative and take the first step toward support that sees you fully and honors the way your brain and body work.
We are an out-of-network practice. This allows us to provide neuroaffirming, weight-inclusive, and autonomy-respecting care without insurance restrictions on diagnosis, session length, or treatment approach. For psychotherapy services, we can provide a superbill upon request for potential out-of-network reimbursement. Superbills are not available for recovery coaching, advocacy, or evaluation services.
We offer telehealth therapy to clients in Maryland, Virginia, and Florida. In-person appointments are available in College Park, Maryland. Recovery coaching and patient advocacy services — including gender-affirming letters, intersex healthcare navigation, and IEP/504 support — are available nationwide.
We provide therapy and autism and ADHD evaluations for children (10+), teens, and adults. Recovery coaching is available for teens (16+) and adults. Recovery coaching for parents and caregivers is also available nationwide, regardless of the age of the child they’re supporting.
You don’t have to figure it out alone. We can help you determine the best fit based on your goals, current support needs, and past experiences with care. Whether you’re seeking therapy, recovery coaching, or advocacy, we’ll meet you where you are and help you take the next step.
Therapy is a clinical service provided by a licensed therapist and focuses on the psychological and emotional roots of eating disorders, OCD, anxiety, and neurodivergent experiences. Recovery coaching is a non-clinical, real-life support service — grounded in lived experience — that helps you navigate the day-to-day moments that therapy doesn’t always reach: meals, routines, hard conversations, and the in-between. The two work best together, and our team collaborates closely across both services.
Not at all. While our name is inspired by gaming and nonlinear journeys, you don’t need to be into games, fandoms, or “geek culture” to feel at home here. You just need support that respects how your brain and body work.
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