We are excited to announce our Eating and Body Image Therapy Group for men beginning in September 2022 over Zoom. This group is for men who are looking for a supportive space to discuss issues around body and eating and/or are looking to add group therapy to their eating disorder recovery. If you are tired …
If you are sending a young adult with a history of an eating disorder to college (or seminary or another away program), it is a good idea to have a college contract in place. This is our recommendation for young adults with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and OSFED. College and living away from …
![Health at Every Size and Eating Disorder [Image description: black larger bodied woman eating a donut]](https://www.eatingdisordertherapyla.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/bodyliberationstock-82137_ccexpress-1024x683.jpeg)
Eating disorders are not only about body image. Nor have they only recently arisen in response to societal pressures to be thin. In fact, eating disorders date back to at least the 13th and 14th centuries, when it was documented that women were fasting to demonstrate religious devotion. However, today eating disorders do occur in …
As we have written elsewhere, we believe Family-Based Treatment (FBT) is a complete treatment for teens with eating disorders. Most teens will not need (or want) additional therapy. The one area where we think teens could use a little more support is in developing a strong anti-diet stance to stand up to weight stigma …
We welcome parents of youth 10 to 20 with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) to our virtual support group. Parenting a young person with ARFID is challenging. Feeding a young person with ARFID is extremely challenging. Meals may feel like a constant struggle. You have likely been given conflicting advice about whether to cater …
When I am working as the Family-Based Treatment (FBT) therapist for a teen in eating disorder recovery, their parents will often ask whether the teen should also see a therapist individually. Unlike other therapy situations, in FBT there is no expectation that there is both an individual therapist and a family therapist. It’s there in …
Many parents experience guilt when their teen is diagnosed with an eating disorder. Nearly every parent can point to a time they themselves dieted, opted not to have a dessert they really wanted, expressed a preference toward thinness, or discouraged their child from keeping eating. You may have done things to try to keep …
Externalizing an eating disorder is a therapeutic strategy that became more widely known through Jenni Schaefer’s book Life Without Ed, cowritten with her therapist Thom Rutledge. The book summarizes Jenni’s recovery from an eating disorder. Jenni describes how in her treatment she learned to personify the eating disorder as “Ed,” an abusive boyfriend. As explained in …
Parents doing Family-Based Treatment (FBT) often struggle with “normal parenting concerns” and setting limits while doing FBT. They’re refeeding their teens at home, doing the hard work often done by professional staff at treatment centers, but they still have to parent. It’s exhausting. Their teens who have eating disorders are often experiencing the psychological and …
We are excited to announce our low-cost eating disorder therapy program. Via our designation as a practicum site, we are now able to train advanced graduate students in psychology in evidence-based treatment for eating disorders. This allows us to further our mission of helping to disseminate evidence-based treatments and to bring them to people in …