Family Therapy
Teenagers and young adults with eating disorders generally depend on their parents or carers for care and support, but family relationships and roles can become strained, complicated or break down completely due to the effects of the eating disorder on the young person's behaviour, attitudes and health. Family therapy for eating disorders can serve a number of beneficial functions.
Parent Information and Guidance:
Parents and carers often need individualised information about their child's illness and its treatment. They need to know how best to help their child with practical matters such as eating, purging, worries about weight or appearance and so on.
Therapeutic engagement to address specific issues:
Sometimes a young person with an eating disorder identifies that addressing a particular family issue will be a relevant step in the recovery process. Family therapy can help with communication and understanding amongst family members.
Therapeutic engagement to enable the family to work as a recovery team:
Some families find they work best as a team to tackle the eating disorder with the young person's cooperation. Family therapy can offer specific guidance on the best strategies for achieving lasting progress.
Family therapy is generally arranged at the request of the young person with an eating disorder, and can be done with the same therapist or a different therapist depending on the nature of the circumstances to be addressed. Family therapy can range from a couple of sessions that augment individual psychotherapy, to regularly occurring sessions that comprise a body of work on a number of key issues related to the young person's recovery.