For Immediate Release

Family Support is the Cornerstone
of Effective Treatment for Eating Disordered Children

In her new book, When Your Child Has an Eating Disorder: A Step-by-Step Workbook for Parents and Other Caregivers (Jossey-Bass Publishers, October 1999) Abigail Natenshon offers parents guidance for giving their children the support and encouragement that is crucial for a successful recovery. She contends that parents and siblings are an intrinsic part of these "family problems" and where they are willing and it is possible, they need to become integrated into the recovery process as proactive members of the treatment team.

Eating Disorders are Family Disorders

• Eating disorders first appear in bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen, not in doctor’s offices or lab tests. In most instances, it is the observant and knowledgeable parent who will initially pick up clues and signs that their child may be struggling.
  
  
• Family treatment is the most effective and timely treatment for the child and family, and its recovery effects are most likely to be sustained. A study out of the Maudsley Hospital in London, England has shown that "Patients with anorexia nervosa with an early onset (18 years old or less) and a short history of illness (less than three years) had a significantly better outcome if they had received family therapy rather than if they had been treated individually." When family members make their own changes paralleling and accommodating those of the patient, recovery will be easier to achieve and more long-lasting. Families are systems and must be treated as such.
  
  
• Siblings need to become involved in supporting the afflicted child through recovery for their own sake, as well as for the benefit of the child patient; through the process, siblings learn valuable lessons about empathy, concern and caring for others, and facing and resolving difficult problems.
  
  
• In this age of managed health care, parents often have little choice but to become knowledgeable advocates for recovery, as most children spend approximately 45 minutes a week with an outpatient therapist; the bulk of their time spent is either at school or at home with the family. Studies show that where severe cases of anorexia had been hospitalized in the past for up to seven months, such cases are being released from hospitals to recover at home now after only 6-12 days. In some cases, particularly with younger children, parents may find it necessary and appropriate to take on the role of assisting their child to restore their weight by becoming "symptom managers." Family dinners lend themselves to being eaten communally and sociably, with concern, love and sharing and are a good place for parents to exert a positive influence. When life, disease, and recovery unfold before parents’ eyes and under their noses at the dinner table and beyond, it begins to feel dishonest for parents to look away and pretend not to see.
  

Parent’s Involvement Critical
The notion of parents and family supporting recovering children and adult children, particularly those who have grown up and left home suggests a cutting edge, if not controversial approach to treatment. Natenshon is not naive to many professionals’ concerns about violating the patient’s confidentiality or negating a child’s budding independence through the presence of family members in treatment; she claims, however, that parents, unless abusive or part of a chaotic family system, generally have pure and noble intentions. A parent’s concerned and educated involvement with the child will ultimately enhance a child’s capacity to separate from family and home in a comfortable and timely fashion; by the same token, clinicians teaching parents to assist in their child’s healing need not breach the child’s confidentiality, with the exception of needing to save a child’s life.

Though not the cause of their child’s eating disorder, knowledgeable parents are the best line of defense against them in terms of cure as well as prevention. Parents either become part of the solution or they risk becoming part of the problem.

Footnotes:
1. Dare, Christopher; LeGrange, Daniel; Eisler, Ivan; Rutherford, Joan Redefining the Psychosomatic Family: Family Process of 26 Eating Disorder Families; International Journal of Eating Disorders, Vol. 16, No. 3, 211-226 (1994) John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
2. Glamour Magazine, August 1999


About Abigail H. Natenshon
Abigail H. Natenshon, MA LCSW has been a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in the treatment of eating disordered individuals and their families for the past 28 years. She is co-founder and director of Eating Disorder Specialists of Illinois; A Clinic without Walls, and the author of When Your Child Has an Eating Disorder: A Step-by-Step Workbook for Parents and Other Caregivers (Jossey Bass, San Francisco, October, 1999). Visit her web sites at www.empoweredparents.com.and www.empoweredkidZ.com


CONTACT:
Abigail Natenshon, MA, LCSW
Telephone 847-432-1795
Fax: 847-266-9233
Highland Park, Illinois 60035
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