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Carolyn Costin · Meet the founder

From my own recovery to a lifelong career helping others.

I recovered from anorexia in my early twenties, and I've spent my life since helping others do the same. Not managing. Not “recovering” forever. Recovered — body and soul.

“Try not to think of recovery as giving up your eating disorder, but rather as getting yourself back — or finding your real self for the first time.”

Almost five decades in the field

Her story

One of the first to say, publicly, that full recovery is possible.

Founder + Therapist M.A., M.Ed., MFT Fellow, Academy of Eating Disorders

Carolyn Costin is an eating disorder clinician, author, and international speaker. In her early twenties, she recovered from anorexia nervosa, earned two master's degrees, became a teacher, and began her career as a psychotherapist. She has spent every year since helping other people find their own way home to their healthy self.

Her journey

The Beginning

In her early twenties, Carolyn recovered from anorexia nervosa. She went on to earn two master's degrees, became a teacher, and began her career as a psychotherapist.

Finding Her Calling

After treating her first eating disorder client in 1979, Carolyn recognized that this work was her calling. The results she saw with clients led her to bring her philosophy to a wider audience — through her speaking, her books, and a growing conviction that people with eating disorders can become fully recovered.

Monte Nido

In 1996, Carolyn founded Monte Nido — the first licensed residential eating disorder treatment facility in a home setting. It grew from her belief that recovery happens best in a real, home-like setting, where clients could learn to live and eat in a healthy, sustainable way. Carolyn sold Monte Nido in 2016.

Present Day

Carolyn now runs The Carolyn Costin Institute, which provides continuing education for professionals and offers the first program dedicated to training, supervising, and certifying eating disorder coaches. She helped open Wandi Nerida — Australia's first residential eating disorder treatment centre — where she serves as a consultant, and in March 2022 the government of Australia awarded her a Distinguished Talent visa for her work in eating disorders. Splitting her time between Malibu and Australia, she continues to write, speak, train clinicians, and consult across the field.

Watch

People speaking about Carolyn and her work.

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A life's work

Five decades of challenging and changing what's possible.

Known as a pioneer in the field, Carolyn has been asking a simple question for almost five decades — what actually helps a person heal, body and soul? — and let the answers lead.

“Fully Recovered”

First to say publicly that people with eating disorders can become fully recovered — when others were treating them as lifelong addictions.

Recovered Staff

First to openly hire recovered staff — therapists, clinicians, and others — as providers, an insider's perspective that instills hope and role-models recovery.

Eastern Healing Modalities

First to bring yoga and meditation into eating disorder treatment.

Family-Style Meals

First to have staff and clients shop, cook, and eat meals together, like a family.

A Unique Level System

Clients build skills through structured, goal-oriented stages — earning responsibility as their healthy self gets stronger, until they're ready to graduate.

Day Treatment

Opened the first free-standing day treatment program in the US not part of an existing hospital.

Coach Certification

Created the first comprehensive eating disorder coach certification program anywhere.

The Carolyn Costin Institute

Training the first generation of recovery coaches.

We opened the Institute in 2017 — the first program of its kind to train and certify eating disorder coaches, filling a real gap in standard eating disorder care.

Coaches learn how to walk beside their clients — assisting treatment teams by helping clients through the day-to-day, real-life behavior challenges that becoming recovered requires. Recovery happens in the moments between professional sessions, and a recovery coach is there for them. Recovered coaches get specific training in how to best use their lived experience — and how to avoid the pitfalls that can come with sharing their own journey.

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What it means to be recovered

“Being recovered is when you can accept your natural body size and shape, and no longer have a self-destructive or unnatural relationship with food or exercise. When you are recovered, food and weight take a proper perspective in your life, and what you weigh is not more important than who you are — in fact, the actual numbers are of little or no importance at all. When recovered, you will not compromise your health or betray your soul to look a certain way, wear a certain size, or reach a certain number on a scale. When recovered you no longer use eating disorder behaviors to deal with, distract from or cope with other problems.”

CCI recognizes that for people with ARFID (Avoidant, Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) issues around weight and shape are most often not part of the presentation — so their definition of “recovered” would differ.

Curriculum Vitae

Professional Background.

Download full CV ↓

Licenses & Education

Fellow — Academy of Eating Disorders (2008)
CEDS — IAEDP Certified Eating Disorder Specialist (1995)
LMFT — California (1979) & Oregon (2006)
EMDR Level II — Certification (2004)
MA — Counseling Psychology, CSUN (1978)
MEd — University of the Pacific (1975)

Published Works

8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder Workbook (2016)
Yoga and Eating Disorders (2016)
Your Dieting Daughter (2013)
8 Keys to Recovery From an Eating Disorder (2012)
100 Questions & Answers About Eating Disorders (2007)
The Eating Disorder Sourcebook, 3rd Ed. (2007)

Experience & Honors

2017–Present — The Carolyn Costin Institute, Founder
2022–Present — Wandi Nerida, Australia, Contractor
1996–2016 — Monte Nido & Affiliates, Founder & CCO
Clinician of the Year — Project HEAL (2015)
Award for Advocacy — NEDA (2008)

Giving back

Our philanthropy.

CCI is part of a philanthropic foundation that Carolyn and her husband Bruce started from the sale of Monte Nido. All CCI profits go to philanthropy. Carolyn takes no salary at CCI, even though she is personally involved in every coach's training.

And because cost should never stand between someone and getting help, several of our coaches and interns offer free or low-fee services.

Find free & low-fee support →

“Training coaches is something I love and am committed to. I'm blessed to be able to do so and to use the money to support eating disorder and other worthy causes that help the planet.”— Carolyn