The Duke Diet & Fitness Center Behavioral Health and Lifestyle Coaching professionals offer individual services for a variety of issues that impact health and quality of life. If you are interested in receiving an intensive individual focus, please explore the many ways we may be of service to you.

Behavioral Lifestyle Assessment

Our comprehensive lifestyle assessment helps you identify the obstacles that may interfere with your ability to make and sustain lasting health changes. We explore social and psychological barriers such as your relationship with food and physical activity, personal and emotional history, social and work commitments, stress, emotions, and support systems.

We help you develop a clear action plan for taking charge of your health and provide you with a written summary and recommendations.

Stress Management

We live in a stressful world that can interfere with health goals and good quality of life. Our staff can help enhance your stress management through improved planning and organization, problem solving, assertive communication, relaxation, self-awareness, and mindfulness.

Overeating and Binge Eating

People binge eat for many reasons but the result is often the same—it gets in the way of your health and wellness goals. We help you to understand the situations, thoughts, and emotions that trigger your binge eating and provide a concrete plan to stop the binge eating cycle.

Relationship with Food

Eating can be one of life’s many pleasures. But for many people, their relationship with food causes pain, frustration, and confusion. We can guide you in exploring the emotional role food plays in your life and assist you in replacing food with something more fulfilling to meet your emotional needs.

Body Image and Self-Image

A healthy body image often includes having a realistic view of both your body and sense of self -- the ability to see yourself as more than just the number on the scale and to accept all the wonderful qualities, including your physical self, that make up who you are.

We help you develop a realistic view of yourself and your body and accept yourself without judgment or shame.

Self-Prioritizing and Self-Care

We all enjoy helping others, being successful in our careers, and being good at whatever we choose to do. However, all too often we do so at our own expense. We can help you to find balance and improve the skills you need to make self-care a regular part of your life.

Social Support and Interpersonal Relationships

Reaching out and getting help from others is often difficult. However, good support is essential to lasting success with healthy lifestyle changes. We can work with you to ensure you are equipped with the tools to get the right kind of encouragement and support from others in your efforts to follow new and healthy habits.

Pain

Pain is a common barrier to making healthy lifestyle changes. We offer behavioral pain management evaluation and services along with appropriate medical referral to help you take control of your pain and stop it from interfering with your health and quality of life.

In addition to a thorough evaluation, we provide a wide range of behavioral pain management strategies, including referrals for biofeedback.

Sleep

When the quality and quantity of sleep is reduced, it can affect your health and lifestyle habits. Whether you are dealing with insomnia, sleep apnea, difficulty tolerating continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), or other sleep issues, behavioral sleep therapy can help you learn new habits that will help you to get the rest you need.

Grief, Loss, and Life Transition

Life transitions, while a normal part of our lives, are often difficult to cope with. With good support we learn, grow, and in time are able to move on. We can help you negotiate these changes in a healthy way, whether it is the loss of a loved one, retirement, or seeking a new direction in life. No matter the circumstance, you can learn to work through the change.

Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, and Psychological Distress

Depression, anxiety, unresolved trauma, or other psychological concerns can diminish the quality of your life. If left unaddressed, they can interfere with important areas of our lives, such as work, relationships, and overall well-being.

We work with you to identify the types of solutions that fit you best. For some, that means exploring past relationships and experiences; for others it may include identifying and addressing the way our current thought and/or behavior patterns influence us. For all, the importance is on helping you to move forward and live a positive and fulfilling life. We also provide referrals for medications and help you find additional resources as needed.

Emotional Awareness

Making healthy lifestyle changes means more than just exercise and healthy eating. It involves becoming aware of thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, and how these impact our well-being. The practice of self-awareness through mindfulness meditation can be very helpful.

We provide individual instruction that can help you to become more self-aware, experience and accept your emotions, develop increased awareness of your body’s hunger and fullness signals, and gain insight into how your experiences and the world around you affect your health and quality of life.

Spiritual life can be an important part of a healthy lifestyle and an invaluable resource when making healthy lifestyle changes. If you wish to explore deeper spiritual issues, we can discuss spirituality, spiritual growth, and life purpose with you and identify the resources that best suit your individual needs.

Memory and Attention Difficulty

When people experience subtle changes in memory and attention, they have difficulty with organizing, prioritizing, and problem-solving tasks. We can provide guidance around your memory and attention difficulties and help you to determine if further evaluation is needed. We offer referrals to ADHD assessments and neuropsychological assessments if needed, and assist you with learning effective strategies to cope with normal decline in memory, attention, organization, and planning skills.

Hypnosis

Have you ever been completely absorbed in a book or movie to the point where you didn’t notice what else was going on around you? Hypnosis is a similar state in which we experience an altered state of consciousness, allowing us to focus our attention, become more responsive to suggestions, and more open to new ideas. Hypnosis can help relieve symptoms, such as pain, as well as improve your offer hypnosis clinicians who can discuss how this technique might work for you.

Personal Lifestyle Coaching Program

For a personalized and individualized health coaching experience we offer the Personal Lifestyle Coaching Program. We offer two options for your convenience:

• Telephone coaching: Get the coaching you need to overcome obstacles, problem solve, and set and achieve realistic goals for your health through the support and encouragement of your trained DFC lifestyle coach. The program includes regular 20-minute telephone coaching calls and e-mail support. Three- and six-month packages are available.
• Face-to-face coaching: You can also work face-to-face with our coaches to help you to overcome obstacles, problem solve, and set and achieve realistic goals for your health. ability to modify your behavior and improve health and personal fulfillment.

For More Information or to Schedule an Appointment

DFC Residential Program participants: Visit the Behavioral Health Suite or leave a note for one of our experienced clinicians.

Non-DFC Residential Program patients: Please contact the Health Navigator at 919-660-6697 or e-mail kay.glisson@duke.edu to schedule an appointment.

Please note that these services are provided on a fee-for-service basis. Payment is due at time of service. Services may not be covered by insurance, and patients are expected to submit directly to their carrier. Contact your benefits administrator for details.

The majority of services are available on a per hour basis unless otherwise noted.