What is the Best Eating Disorder Treatment at Any Given Time?
What is the best treatment at any given time when recovering from an eating disorder? This is one of the great questions providers, clients, and families alike struggle to answer.
We know there are significant scientifically based therapies that deliver positive outcomes, including weight restoration and behavior cessation. In fact, The Emily Program incorporates these therapies in our programs — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Family-Based Therapy — and has experienced much success through them.
Having said that, however, we also know that many clients who are able to cease behaviors and achieve weight restoration may continue to experience physiological distress, urges, body dissatisfaction, and anxiety, among other eating disorder symptoms.
Further complicating the issue, eating disorders often occur in secret and many clients may not reveal the intensity of their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings during treatment.
The key for clinicians is assessment. But when we work in a culture where there is hyperconsciousness around body size and shape and where restricting, over-exercise, taking laxatives and body cleansing are considered “normal” behaviors, therapists may not fully understand the intensity of an eating disorder and how it differs from the “norm.”
What’s more, therapists may have their own issues with body size and shape, which may affect their ability to assess their clients with full accuracy.
So when we combine a challenging culture with the difficulty of assessment and the reality of evidence-based therapies, we are left with the question: How do clients really get better?
As a professional in recovery who has worked many years with other experienced professionals in recovery, there are some significant thoughts we all should consider:
- For us, finding the right person to talk to and reveal the truths behind our eating disorder was critical.
- In addition, we needed that person to understand that we really had a disorder and it wasn’t just a matter of being unhappy with our bodies or food.
- Lastly, even after weight restoration and cessation of behaviors, we weren’t done with treatment. A variety of therapies — including experimental, body-oriented, emotion-focused, meditative, and movement, among others — often turned out to be critical to our ultimate recovery.
At The Emily Program, we have made it a priority to determine how best to assess our clients, when to treat and when to refer them, and what therapies are best to incorporate at any given time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Warren, MD
Dr. Mark Warren (he/him) is the Chief Medical Officer of Accanto Health, the parent company of The Emily Program and Gather Behavioral Health. His primary focus enhancing patient safety and providing comprehensive treatment that addresses both the physical and psychological aspects of eating disorders. Working alongside our executive team and our medical staff, Dr. Warren is dedicated to helping all of our patients embark on a path toward a meaningful and joyful life.
Dr. Warren is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Academy of Eating Disorders, where he co-founded the special interest group (SIG) for Professionals and Recovery and the SIG for Males and Eating Disorders. He is a two-time recipient of the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and a winner of the Woodruff Award. He has published and spoken extensively on males and eating disorders, professionals and recovery, and DBT and FBT in the treatment of eating disorders.
Dr. Warren is a founding member and former co-chair of the Academy of Eating Disorders Medical Care Standards Committee and serves on the FEAST Medical Advisory Board and The Visiting Committee of the Case Western Francis Payne Bolton School of Nursing.
Having personally experienced an eating disorder as a young man, Mark feels privileged to be working in the field of eating disorders for over two decades.