Search for help with your CEDS hours and you’ll find pages advertising CEDS supervision, CEDS consultation, eating disorder supervision, and clinical consultation — sometimes on the same website, describing the same service.
It’s confusing, it’s worth five minutes of your time to sort out, and getting it wrong can cost you hours that don’t count.
The short answer
For the CEDS credential, iaedp’s term is consultation, and it must be provided by an iaedp-Approved Consultant (CEDS-C).
Almost everyone, including the people providing it, calls it supervision. That’s not wrong in everyday conversation — it’s simply not the word on the application. What matters isn’t which word appears on someone’s website. It’s whether the person holds the CEDS-C credential.
Three different things people mean by “supervision”
Most of the confusion comes from three distinct things sharing one word.
1. iaedp consultation for the CEDS
The 24 hours the credential requires, completed with a CEDS-C. This is credential-specific and governed entirely by iaedp. It has nothing to do with your state board.
2. Licensure supervision in your own discipline
Separate, and governed by your state licensing board — the supervised practice hours some states require for licensure, or for a provisional license to become full. A CEDS-C who isn’t authorized by your board can’t provide this, and CEDS consultation hours don’t substitute for it. If you need both, check whether one person can lawfully provide both before you assume it.
3. Ordinary clinical case consultation
Getting another clinician’s eyes on a case because you want them. No credential attached, no hours logged, just good practice. Plenty of experienced dietitians do this for their whole careers and never pursue a certification.
All three are legitimate. Only the first one counts toward your CEDS.
What a CEDS-C actually is
The CEDS-C — Certified Eating Disorders Specialist Consultant — is iaedp’s consultant-level credential. A CEDS-C already holds an active CEDS, has accumulated 6,000+ hours treating eating disorders, and has completed iaedp’s additional requirements for the designation, including a workshop and knowledge assessment. The credential renews every two years.
Two things a CEDS-C is authorized to do for you:
Provide the consultation hours your CEDS application requires
Verify your accumulated practice hours — the 2,500 hours of eating disorder–specific experience
That second one is easy to overlook and genuinely useful. Your hours need oversight from a CEDS-C, so the person consulting with you is typically also the person attesting to the work you’ve done.
How the 24 hours break down
24 hours total with an iaedp-Approved Consultant
At least 12 must be individual or dyad consultation
The remaining 12 can be individual or group
So you can complete all 24 individually, but you cannot complete all 24 in a group. Group consultation caps at half.
Most clinicians end up doing both, and not only because of the rule. Group gives you range — you hear how six other people would approach a case you’ve been circling for a month. Individual gives you depth on the cases that actually need it. They do different work.
Does your consultant have to be in your discipline?
No. iaedp does not require your consultant to share your profession. A dietitian can complete CEDS hours with a therapist CEDS-C, and a therapist can complete them with a dietitian CEDS-C.
Worth thinking about rather than defaulting, though. If you’re a dietitian, a nutrition-forward consultant can work with you on the specifics of refeeding, meal planning that isn’t landing, and medical risk — the places where eating disorder treatment most often fails quietly. If you’re a therapist, consulting with a dietitian gives you a clear view of the work happening in the other room, which is where a surprising number of treatment plans come apart.
Choose for what you need to learn, not for the letters that match yours.
Do the hours have to come at the end?
No — and treating them that way is the most common strategic mistake in this process.
The 24 consultation hours and the 2,500 practice hours run in parallel. Consultation exists so you have someone to think with while the hard cases are in front of you. Saving it for the end turns a formative experience into paperwork, and it usually delays your application, because you’re now waiting on one person’s calendar for 24 hours of their time.
How to check someone is really a CEDS-C
Before you pay for hours that might not count:
Look for “CEDS-C” or “CEDS-c” in their credentials, not just “CEDS” or “eating disorder supervisor.” A CEDS alone cannot provide your hours.
Ask directly whether their credential is current. It renews every two years.
Ask how they document your hours, and whether they’ll also verify your 2,500 practice hours.
Check the iaedp directory if you want independent confirmation.
Anyone legitimately holding the credential will answer these without a flicker of defensiveness. It’s a reasonable thing to ask.
Five questions worth asking a prospective consultant
What does a typical session look like — do I bring cases, or do you teach?
What’s your clinical frame? (If weight neutrality matters to you, ask outright.)
What populations do you have the most depth in — ARFID, athletes, higher levels of care, adolescents?
Do you offer group as well as individual, and how do you split them?
Will you tell me when you think I’m handling something badly?
That last one is the real question. Consultation you agree with all the time is pleasant and does very little. You’re paying for the times someone tells you something you don’t want to hear, early enough to do something about it.
Looking for a CEDS-C?
I’m an iaedp-Approved Consultant providing individual and group CEDS supervision — consultation, formally — to dietitians, therapists, and other licensed clinicians nationwide, over secure video. I provide the hours and verify your accumulated practice hours.