St. Paul – Anna Westin House for Adults

The Anna Westin House is a 16-bed eating disorder treatment center for adults in St. Paul, MN. 

Opened in 2002, the original Anna Westin House in Chaska became Minnesota’s first facility for residential eating disorder treatment. It was created in memory of Anna Westin, a Chaska woman who died in 2000 after battling an eating disorder. The Emily Program assumed the operations of the Anna Westin House in 2007 and relocated in 2010 to our present location, a beautifully remodeled church. The renovated facility is in the quiet St. Anthony Park neighborhood. (The Anna Westin House for Adolescents, which is located in the same neighborhood, is the first treatment center of its kind in Minnesota dedicated exclusively to teenagers.)

• Contemporary homelike setting for all genders
• Onsite 24/7 nursing supervision and medical monitoring
• Onsite therapists, physicians, dietitians, and other professional staff
• Individual, group, and family therapy
• Integrative intervention, such as expressive arts and movement therapy
• Support for co-occurring disorders
• Therapeutic meals and snacks with nutrition counseling and education
• Onsite laundry facilities, WiFi, and common area
• Family education and support

Residents participate in group sessions, a variety of individual sessions, and therapeutic meals and snacks. Sessions include psychotherapy, family therapy, nutrition, expressive arts, medical assessments and monitoring, psychiatric visits, and other services during the week. Each resident’s schedule is personalized to meet their specific needs.

Group Psychotherapy: Groups meet to share common experiences and to alleviate feelings of shame and isolation. Sharing common experiences breaks these barriers and inspires self-understanding as each person learns to identify unhealthy patterns and develop healthy alternatives. Group therapy may include learning skills of CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), and others.

Family Therapy: Family therapy sessions explore and improve long-standing communication patterns between family members. These sessions provide awareness of common issues and roles and help the individual with the eating disorder to recover and work toward a successful transition to the next level of care. Multifamily group and meal sessions are incorporated each week.

Nutrition Therapy: Individual, group and family nutritional counseling, education, and meal planning are tailored to each resident’s needs to help them interrupt symptom use, restore body health, and regain trust in their body’s ability to regulate eating. These sessions and supported therapeutic meals and snacks help restore harmony to eating patterns, develop self-care skills, and help family members better understand how to support their loved one around eating.

Medical Care: A nursing staff, a physician, and/or a physician assistant evaluate and monitor each resident’s medical status.

Psychiatric Care: Our staff psychiatrists are specially trained to treat eating disorders and related co-occurring disorders. Medications may be incorporated into treatment of the eating disorder or other related conditions.

Experiential Activities: Experiences such as grocery shopping, and practicing eating in a variety of meal situations help the individual strengthen self-expression and gain assertiveness and change behaviors.

Additional Therapies: Integrative interventions may be included in a treatment plan, as appropriate for each client. Some of these therapies include:

• Expressive Arts: Creating art helps relieve anxiety, address body image issues, provide nonverbal means of expression, and assist in developing new coping and expressive skills.
• Movement Therapy: Yoga, stretching, strength work, and play activities support well-being.

Our parking lot is directly adjacent to our building (a historic church). The parking lot is not marked with Emily Program signage for privacy reasons. (It is directly across from the University of Minnesota campus.)

• If you cannot find space in the lot, our front desk staff can help identify alternatives.
• Street parking is limited and is actively patrolled. If you exceed the time limit, there’s a good possibility you’ll be ticketed or towed.
• Entry to our building: There is no exterior Emily Program signage. Please ring the doorbell on the west side (parking lot side) for entry.