Continuing education for Registered Dietitians
Learn body-signal assessment and ways to examine food rules, eating patterns and body concerns. CPsyN™ Level 1 teaches Emahlea Wilcher’s Psychonutrition House™ framework through eight online modules and a complete case.
$997Complete Level 1 · 8 modules · 27+ tools · 37 CPEUs · weekly live Q&A
Enroll in Complete Level 1Or start with the Foundations Pass, $69 · 6 CPEUs
Psychonutrition studies the relationship between nutrition, psychology and eating behavior. Stress, emotions and experience can shape eating, while what people eat may relate to mood and mental wellbeing.
View the curriculumWho Level 1 is for
You may support someone who knows what to eat and struggles to do it consistently. They might feel guilty after eating, follow rigid food rules, or notice that their appetite changes under stress. Those experiences give you something specific to explore together.
If you run a private practice, teach nutrition, or support clients through an online or group program, consider where these principles fit your work. The course examines hunger and fullness, stress, body concerns, communication, documentation, and referral. The curriculum below describes the assessment and case-based material you’ll actually study.
A psychonutritionist applies psychology-informed approaches to eating and nutrition care. Here, a Certified Psychonutritionist™ (CPsyN™) is a Registered Dietitian who has completed New Approach Health’s Level 1 training in the Psychonutrition House™ framework and practices it within RD/RDN scope.
Emahlea Wilcher developed the New Approach Health Psychonutrition House™ framework and teaches it in CPsyN™ Level 1.
The framework
Emahlea Wilcher uses a house to organize her holistic approach to nutrition care. You begin with regulation, then examine eating patterns, body concerns, and the working relationship with your client. The final module brings these areas together in a case.
The framework guides assessment and decisions within nutrition care.
In the course overview, each level of the house answers one clinical question. Three examples:
Can the nervous system tolerate the session?
What shaped their body story?
What keeps the pattern in place?
Psychonutrition House™ framework by Emahlea Wilcher, MPH, MS, RD, LD.
Psychonutrition course curriculum
When a client can’t make sense of hunger, Module 1 examines body-signal assessment. Modules 2 and 3 address eating patterns, food rules, and body concerns. Modules 4–6 cover the dietitian–client relationship, motivational interviewing, and meaning-based practice. Scope, ethics, and referral come first in Module 0; Module 7 brings the framework together in a case. Open a module to see the material. Scientific sources are listed further down.
Nine lessons introduce psychonutrition and the Psychonutrition House™ framework. You'll examine clinical attunement, what an “-informed” approach means in nutrition care, CDR scope and flexible boundaries, and the Clinical Translation Guide. The module also covers referral decisions, ethical practice, and the dual-competence standard.
Study the gut–brain connection, neurovisceral integration, and heart rate variability (HRV). You'll examine interoception, the window of tolerance, dissociation and eating, and grounding in nutrition care. The module introduces the PACI–HFSC–WIS–MMP–PMCA–MRP clinical sequence for assessment and regulation.
Examine eating behavior through the framework's nervous system lens, including six nutritional domains of chronic stress and burnout. The module covers screening instruments (SCOFF, EAT-26, EDE-QS, PSS-10, MBI-HSS, PHQ-2/GAD-2), protocols for their use within scope, the BNIA Tool, and a longitudinal clinical case.
Look at how diet culture, internalized weight bias, and cultural context shape a client's relationship with food and their body. You'll examine the connection between appearance concerns and eating, cultural humility in sessions, and the course's Functional Body Framework and Body Distress Response Protocol.
Examine attachment patterns using the Bartholomew-Horowitz model and consider how they show up in a nutrition session. This module covers the secure-base RDN stance, session structure, co-regulation, and a five-pattern countertransference protocol for examining your own responses as a clinician.
Work through motivational interviewing, including OARS and change talk, and self-determination theory's focus on autonomy, competence, and relatedness. You'll also examine the function of an eating disorder as an attachment object and a clinical tool for distinguishing ambivalence from resistance tied to identity.
Examine meaning-based food practices, safety anchoring, and the MPNAT. The module covers radical acceptance, the DBT dialectic in recovery, and post-traumatic growth. It also introduces HEPAL and chrono-nutrition as ways to consider the structure of behavior change.
Bring the modules together using the Psychonutrition House™ Floor Assessment Protocol (PHFAP) and Prioritization Matrix. You'll examine the progression from co-regulation to self-regulation, document care across the framework, and work through a case from intake to discharge.
Compare
| Feature | Foundations Pass | Individual Parts | Complete Level 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $69 | I: $397 · II: $297 · III: $497 | $997 |
| CPEUs | 6 | I: 13.5 · II: 9 · III: 15 | 37 |
| Content | Module 0 | I: Modules 0–1 · II: 2–3 · III: 4–7 | All 8 modules |
| Prerequisites | None | II requires I; III requires I & II | None |
| Weekly live Q&A | No | No | Yes |
| Clinical tools | Module 0 tools | Tools for that Part | Full 27+ tool suite |
| Leads to CPsyN™ | No | No | Yes, on completion |
All options include lifetime access to purchased materials and a 7-day money-back guarantee under the conditions in our Terms. Complete Level 1 also includes future updates to its materials.
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Your instructor
MPH, MS, RD, LD
Emahlea holds a Master of Public Health in Nutritional Sciences and a Master of Science in Epidemiology, both from the University of Washington. She completed the UW Coordinated Dietetics Program. She founded New Approach Health, a practice of dietitians focused on the psychological and nervous-system dimensions of eating.
She developed the Psychonutrition House™ framework and teaches CPsyN™ Level 1, including the weekly live Q&A for Complete Level 1 students.
Complete Level 1 includes all eight modules, weekly live Q&A, and the CPsyN™ credential pathway. Individual Parts and the Foundations Pass cover their specific material.
Eight modules of psychonutrition training for Registered Dietitians.
One-time · Lifetime access
$27/CPEU
That is $74.90 more than Complete Level 1, which also adds the weekly live Q&A and the CPsyN™ credential pathway.
Nine introductory lessons on psychonutrition, scope, referral, and ethical practice.
$11.50/CPEU · 6 CPEUs
7-day money-back guarantee
Individual Parts do not award the CPsyN™ credential and do not include the weekly live Q&A.
Scope of practice, nervous system assessment, and the Psychonutrition House™ framework.
Eating patterns, screening tools, weight bias, and the context of a client's food and body concerns.
Attachment, motivational interviewing, meaning-based practice, and case integration.
All three Parts bought individually at undiscounted prices: $1,191.00, which is $194.00 more than Complete Level 1. With the 10% multi-Part discount below: $1,071.90.
Select the Parts you want, then review the total below. Two or more Parts receive the existing 10% discount automatically at checkout.
Before you enroll
Complete Level 1 costs $997. It includes all eight modules, the full 27+ tool suite, 37 CPEUs, weekly live Q&A with Emahlea, lifetime access and the CPsyN™ Level 1 credential pathway.
The course is online and self-paced, with lifetime access to the lessons and tools. Complete Level 1 also includes weekly live Q&A with Emahlea. You can work through the modules at your own pace.
Complete Level 1 and the individual Parts are intended for RD/RDNs and dietetic interns or graduate students in accredited programs. New Approach Health awards CPsyN™ Level 1 to RD/RDNs in good standing who complete all eight modules and the required Psychonutrition House™ Floor Assessment Protocol (PHFAP) case write-up. The Foundations Pass is open to any adult learner.
CPsyN™ Level 1 covers somatic-informed assessment, interoception, trauma-informed principles and motivational interviewing. RDs in private practice, online memberships or group programs can draw on these principles when planning nutrition education, choosing discussion topics or writing asynchronous client-support material. These are ways to adapt the learning to your own work.
Module 0 includes a dedicated ethics lesson. Ethics requirements are set by each state board or credentialing body.
If, after completing Module 0, the framework is not right for your practice, you can request a full refund within seven calendar days of purchase. The Terms describe the full conditions.
Sources
Stress and mood can affect appetite and food choices. Researchers also study how dietary patterns may affect mental wellbeing. The BMJ review by Firth and colleagues below explores these relationships. The other sources explain gut–brain signals, body-signal awareness, and trauma-informed care.
The BMJ · Firth and colleagues, 2020
Food and mood: how do diet and nutrition affect mental wellbeing?Reviews how mood can affect appetite and food choices, and how dietary patterns may relate to mental wellbeing.
NIDDK · National Institutes of Health
Your Digestive System & How It WorksDescribes how nerves and hormones help control digestion, including signals that pass between the GI tract and the brain.
SAMHSA
Trauma-Informed Approaches and ProgramsOutlines trauma-informed principles such as safety, choice, and collaboration, which the framework adopts as a clinical stance.
PubMed · peer-reviewed review
Gastrointestinal Interoception in Eating Disorders: Charting a New PathReviews research on how gut and body signals are perceived and processed in eating disorders, an active area of study.
Clinical notes and course updates for dietitians.