Turn your experience into your calling — or enhance your skills for understanding and treating eating disorders.

There's no single answer, and that's by design. You can start any time and move at your own pace — people come to this with different lives and schedules, and all of that is welcome. The course was designed to easily complete in 12 months, but we give an automatic extension for 6 months if requested, giving you 18 months to complete. Only one extension is granted after that, for an additional cost. Supervision begins once you've finished the coursework. You'll respond to real scenarios, meet with clients, and record sessions so we can give you important feedback. Plan at least two months for supervision — some have needed more, some less. We suggest you explore where you will get your clients for supervision right away, as this is the hard part for many students.

Yes — the whole course is online, so you can take it from anywhere in the world.

You can. Enrollment is open year-round — there's no deadline, no “term,” no waiting for the right semester. You begin when you're ready and work at your own pace, with that one important deadline of finishing within 18 months.

Those are wonderful credentials, but they weren't built for the work coaches actually do. Coaching is hands-on and lives in the everyday moments — the meal, the grocery store, the hard hour after eating at a challenging restaurant or difficult session. Our program gives you a different kind of training entirely: based on exposure and response prevention, practical, real-world, and focused on walking beside someone as they face their fears and heal.

Anyone who wants to work more skillfully with people who have eating disorders can gain something here. Many of us earn our credentials without ever getting much specific training in eating disorders — especially in the real-life skills work that recovery so often turns on. I designed this course to teach exactly that: how to help someone change behavior and rebuild the everyday parts of living that an eating disorder steals — eating at a restaurant, grocery shopping, buying new clothes, going to the gym. These are where so much real healing happens.

Yes. There's a quiz for each module and a final exam, and they're there for good reason — this is important work, and we want you to feel genuinely ready. The final exam indicates whether you understand and can use the CCI philosophy and coaching strategies, stay clearly within your scope, and have truly taken the learning at CCI to heart. We administer the exam ourselves at the Institute; it isn't a state or national board exam. You'll have four hours to complete it — if you don't pass within that time, the exam restarts so you can take it again.

Your certificate tells people — clients, families, employers — that you've completed serious, rigorous training as an eating disorder coach. Official recognition of coaching education varies a great deal from place to place, and eating disorder coaching is still a young, growing field. Most people who know Carolyn respect the CCI training and logo, so use it on your marketing material. We're pioneers in this work, and you can be one too. Do look into any rules where you live — but a certification from The Carolyn Costin Institute, with my decades in this work, means something. The one thing we ask of every coach is to stay in your lane, assist the licensed professionals on the team, and respect your place in the overall landscape of eating disorder care. Be careful not to let anyone think you are a replacement for a licensed clinician unless you actually hold those credentials too.

If you're recovered yourself, we ask that you meet our definition of “Recovered” and that you have been recovered for at least two years before you begin the course. Your own recovery is a gift you'll bring to this work — we just want it to be standing on solid ground first.

Some students already have a way to get clients through various avenues and connections — but many are unsure where to find clients. You should start working on a plan right away. Knowing how to find clients is important and will be necessary when you become certified, for your coaching business to be successful. We do offer some suggestions, so when you reach module 10 or 11 and still haven't figured out where to get clients, let us know and we'll try to help — but this is your responsibility.

We worked hard on making our price affordable and fair. There really is no other eating disorder recovery coaching program like CCI, so we have nothing to compare it to. However, if you wanted to compare it to recognized life-coaching programs in the US, they range from approximately $5,000 to $15,000 — and do not train you to work with eating disorders. You can probably find programs that certify people after a few hours of videos, but to be a truly trained eating disorder coach who can build a successful practice, that isn't enough. The cost covers everything — the full program, online tools, all materials, the exams, and your supervision. No hidden fees. When you train here, you're learning from a licensed therapist, nationally and internationally recognized as an eating disorder expert, with almost five decades treating eating disorders, several published books, and an Approved CE Provider standing with CAMFT (#134625) and NBCC (ACEP No. 6849).

If the calling is there but the full amount upfront isn't, please don't let that turn you away. We offer financial aid in the form of a payment plan, and you can choose it right when you enroll.

We can't promise you a job — no training institution can do that. But this training prepares you well, and coaching continues to take on a bigger role in recovery. Your CCI certification shows you've been trained by an organization increasingly referred to as the gold standard for eating disorder coach training. The CCI certification logo means you have the understanding and skills to walk beside someone with an eating disorder, assisting them to make the changes necessary to recover. From there the path is yours — your own practice, a coaching organization, or perhaps a treatment center.

You'll be a Certified Eating Disorder Coach from The Carolyn Costin Institute — formally, a Certified CCI Eating Disorder Coach (CCI-EDC). To stay certified, you'll do continuing education with us every two years. And if you're recovered yourself, there's a special training module just for you.

They can be worth approaching — people so often need an extra hand moving between levels of care, and that's exactly where a coach helps. The most welcoming, in my experience, are day treatment and Intensive Outpatient programs, where people frequently need meal support and a steadying presence outside program hours. We are also increasingly trying to work with residential programs to offer our interns in the transition process, as clients step down to lower levels of care.

Once you're certified, you'll be listed right here on our website, with materials and the CCI logo for your professional use. Sometimes we get inquiries and might include your name in a list of appropriate referrals. We train coaches, but we don't hire them — once certified, you're free to build your own practice or work with another organization. A handful of eating disorder coaching organizations have taken special interest in our coaches and have hired them; you can ask about this as you get closer to the end of the course.

Modeling a healthy, easy, free relationship with food is one of the most important things for a coach. As a coach, you'll need to be ready to eat freely — even more freely than “recovered” usually asks of a person. You might eat late at night, have fries you didn't plan to, share pizza and dessert, or sit with a client for breakfast in the early hours. For our recovered coaches, I call this being “Recovered Plus.” A couple of real examples: Dave works until 9 p.m. and needs a coach who'll have dinner with him afterward. Julie has never once eaten a donut without purging — she needs to do it several times to build a new pattern, and as her coach, you're the one helping her, again and again, without purging.

We understand completely, and we have clear guidelines woven into the meal coaching training. If you eat gluten-free or vegetarian, the idea is simply to keep that from interfering with being a good role model — and only bring up limitations when necessary. Order pizza with gluten-free dough if you need to, or a cheese pizza if you're vegetarian — what the person watches for is whether you'll eat it freely. It's never about pretending. It's about not letting an eating disorder fix onto your limitations or use them as permission for following restrictive rules.