How to Support Someone With ARFID: A Guide for Family and Friends
Supporting someone with ARFID means reducing mealtime pressure, offering safe foods without judgment, and knowing when professional help is needed. A guide for family and friends.
Brian Nuckols
Licensed professional counselor in Pittsburgh, PA. I work with children, adolescents, adults, and couples across seven clinical areas: child and teen therapy (DBT-A), infidelity and betrayal trauma, eating disorders and ARFID, gambling addiction, couples therapy, neurodivergence, and depth psychology. The common thread is patterns that do not resolve with standard approaches, where evidence-based treatment needs to meet the deeper question of why the pattern exists.
If you're here because something is wrong, you're in the right place.
Areas of Practice
Child & Teen Therapy
DBT-A for adolescents struggling with intense emotions, self-harm, and crisis behaviors. Parent psychoeducation and family skills training.
Neurodivergence & Neuro Affinity
Masking, burnout, sensory processing, and rejection sensitivity. RO-DBT for overcontrol, process-based therapy for individual pattern mapping, and depth work that takes neurodivergent experience seriously.
Eating Disorders & ARFID
Specialized treatment for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. CBT-AR, sensory approaches, and family-based work.
Gambling Addiction
Evidence-based treatment that takes gambling seriously as both a neurological condition and a psychological one. Understanding what gambling provides is the beginning of recovery.
Couples Therapy
EFT and depth-oriented couples work for relationships where the same fight keeps happening or one partner is changing in ways the relationship can't accommodate.
Infidelity & Betrayal Trauma
Affair recovery that goes beyond stabilization. Gottman and EFT protocols for the crisis, plus the deeper work of understanding what the affair revealed.
Recent Writing
The Signal and the Fog: Was the Affair Telling You Something True About the Marriage
When an affair involves someone who actually listened, the question of whether the marriage is over cannot be answered from inside the limerent fog. A clinical framework for distinguishing legitimate marital signal from neurochemical distortion.
5 Signs Your Teen Might Have an Eating Disorder (Beyond Weight Loss)
Weight is the least reliable indicator of an eating disorder. Learn 5 behavioral signs parents should watch for, including ARFID, and why early intervention saves lives.
The Gambling Loop: Why Willpower Fails and What Breaks the Cycle
Gambling disorder runs on a six-link loop: trigger, urge, gambling, relief, consequences, shame. Willpower dampens the input without dismantling the loop. What works is decoupling craving from action, a mechanism documented in addiction research by Judson Brewer and colleagues.
What Is Craving, Really? The Neuroscience of the Gambling Urge
A gambling craving is a time-limited physical event that peaks and passes in minutes, not a demand that grows until you give in. Research on cue-induced craving and the default mode network explains why the craving feels inevitable and why decoupling, not suppression, is what weakens it.
Free Courses
Psychoeducation courses written for the people living with these conditions and their families. Evidence-based, clinician-written, no cost.
Common reasons people reach out
- "My partner had an affair and I don't know how to trust again"
- "My child won't eat and our pediatrician mentioned ARFID"
- "I've lost more money than I can admit to anyone"
- "We love each other but feel like roommates"
- "My teenager is cutting and I don't know what to do"
Free Self-Assessments
Clinician-designed tools to help you understand what you're dealing with. Free, private, no account required.
Assessment
View all assessments → GEAR Assessment
Screens for gambling-related harm across four domains: financial, emotional, relational, and behavioral. About 5 minutes.
Take the assessment → AssessmentPersonal Reflection Inventory
Maps your psychological patterns, including stress responses, interpersonal style, and how you relate to control. About 15 minutes.
Take the assessment → AssessmentCognitive Style Inventory
48-item assessment of eight cognitive processes based on Dario Nardi's research. Best-fit personality type and archetypal function stack. About 5 minutes.
Take the CSI → Assessment SuiteAutism & Neurodivergence
AQ-10 quick screen (5 min), CAT-Q masking assessment (10 min), and RAADS-R comprehensive (20 min). Designed for adults, especially women and late-identified individuals.
See the assessments → AssessmentC.A.R.E. Assessment
Measures four dimensions of relational health: Calm, Accepted, Resonant, and Energized. About 5 minutes.
Take the assessment →