Posts Tagged “Family-Based Therapy”

We offer Family-Based Treatment (FBT) at The Emily Program because we believe that incorporating a client’s family into their treatment will make the individual more successful in their recovery. Family-Based Treatment is an approach to therapy where parents play an active and positive role in their child’s recovery. This teamwork assists in restoring the individual’s weight, empowering them around eating, and helping to establish a healthy adolescent identity.

Family-Based Treatment starts with the understanding that parents are not the cause of their child’s eating disorder and that they can be a major asset in recovery. FBT understands the importance of family and that families are a key component in child development. That being said, families are able to help advocate for change in their child’s behaviors. By playing an active role in their child’s recovery, parents can help their child work through FBT and find lasting recovery.

By Lucene Wisniewski, PhD

Hurst, K., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. (2015). Focus on perfectionism in female adolescent anorexia nervosa. The International Journal of Eating Disorders, 48(7), 936–941.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a difficult illness to recover from for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it’s life-threatening and secondly, the treatments available do not yield high success rates and are in need of improvement.

By Lucene Wisniewski, chief clinical officer

“How do Parents of Adolescent Patients with Anorexia Nervosa Interact with their Child at Mealtimes? A study of Parental Strategies used in the Family Meal Session of FBT.” International Journal of Eating Disorders, vol 48, issue 1, p. 72-80 White, Haycraft, Madden, Rhodes, Miskovic-Wheatley, Wallis, Kohn & Meyer (2015)

This recent study examined the types of parental mealtime strategies used during a family meal session of Family-Based Therapy (FBT). Researchers studied 21 families with children between the ages of 12 to 18 who were receiving FBT for anorexia nervosa. They also were interested in the emotional tone of the meal, as well as the parents’ ability to get their child to eat.

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.

Re-posted from Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders (CCED) blog archives. CCED and The Emily Program partnered in 2014.

By Dr. Mark Warren

For several years it’s been clear that Family Based Therapy (FBT) has the most evidence-based support for its effectiveness with recovery rates in the 50-60% range for adolescents with anorexia who have been ill for less than three years. This number is two to three times better than other therapies for this patient population.

Re-posted from Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders (CCED) blog archives. CCED and The Emily Program partnered in 2014.

By Samantha Mishne, LISW-S, LICDC

How do you move from a willful place to a willing place? I remind myself willingness is not a thing or a place; it is instead a view on life. Life is happening all around and I can either be willing to accept the change or feedback I receive, or I can be willful and in turn, stay miserable, or say “yes, but”.

Re-posted from the Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders (CCED) blog archives and updated with additional Emily Program client thoughts. CCED and The Emily Program partnered in 2014. Contributions by Sarah Emerman.

In the field of eating disorders, multiple studies have shown that Family-Based Treatment (FBT) is the most effective method available to achieve successful weight restoration and maintenance after treatment is completed. Unfortunately, specific treatments for adults have not been shown to have the same long-term benefits as FBT. Clearly, there are many variables involved in this data, however, there are elements to FBT that may point us to a better understanding of what happens for adults.

Re-posted from Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders (CCED) blog archives. CCED and The Emily Program partnered in 2014.

By Dr. Mark Warren

A recent article in the International Journal of Eating Disorders by Couturier, Kimber, and Szatmari (2013) adds to the literature on the effectiveness of Maudsley Family Based Therapy (FBT). Their conclusion is that while FBT does not show superiority to other therapies during treatment, there are significant benefits at the 6 -12 month follow up. These benefits reach a level of significance that would cause one to recommend FBT for the treatment of eating disorders in adolescents instead of individual therapy. As they discuss in their article, there are multiple limitations to this study, however, research literature has long pointed to the superiority of FBT over individual therapy. This article, therefore, adds to a growing body of data.