The Eating Disorder Treatment Team
By Abigail Natenshon

Should eating disorder treatment be the treatment of choice in your child's case? If the issues are those of an eating disorder, so should be the treatment protocol.

Parents must learn to understand the nature of the treatment they are purchasing and to recognize to what end that treatment leads. Eating disorder treatment, with its multifaceted bent and its attention to both behaviors and emotions, offers unique qualities. It treats the person as a whole as it addresses the eating disorder specifically. Nonspecialized psychotherapy may overlook food-related dysfunction, leaving it untended for months or even years. Parents of eating disordered children must be careful to distinguish general psychotherapy from eating disorder therapy; they are not the same thing.

Don't expect to put your head on your child's shoulders in an effort to force him to see things as you do. His treatment choices must be his own, but this does not mean you should be without a voice. Your child needs to hear from you about your ideas, your concerns, your values, and how you might approach this problem, even as he makes his own decisions and determines his own course of action. He will need your input now so that he can learn to function well without you later.

Eating disorders are most effectively addressed by a collaborative, multidisciplinary team of professionals. Depending on your child's needs, the outpatient eating disorder treatment team may include you, an individual and a family therapist (who may be the same person), a nutritionist, an internist, and a medicating psychiatrist. School personnel and hospital staff may also be helpful additions to the team. The participation of these various disciplines will vary from case to case and from stage to stage of treatment and recovery.

There are times when the full complement of team members will be required as early as the diagnostic stage. In one instance a patient needed to be seen by a psychotherapist, individually and with her family, by a nutritionist for assessment and education, and ultimately by an internist before she realized a problem existed that was worthy of her attention. Though certain disciplines may not be active at a particular point in treatment, this does not minimize their potential for influence and involvement later, should the need arise.

Parents typically express concern that involving several professionals will be costly. In reality the team approach is so comprehensive and effective, it invariably proves to be the least time-consuming and most cost-effective form of treatment. A treatment team is more likely to get results and to get them faster.




Reprinted from When Your Child Has An Eating Disorder, A Step-by-Step Workbook For Parents And Other Caregivers, Jossey-Bass, 1999.