Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment

By Dean Malec, Research Assistant, Sarah Emerman, and Dr. Denise Ben-Porath

 

The Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders has a strong commitment to ongoing research on effective treatment and evidence based care. Currently, CCED is conducting research for program evaluation on our adult, adolescent, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) day treatment, and intensive outpatient programs. Our goal is to ensure that we are offering empirically supported treatment that also best meets the needs of our clients. Several of our questionnaires have behavioral components to them that examine number of behaviors as treatment progresses, as well as emotional characteristics, such as hopelessness and impulsivity. By assessing the behavioral, psychological, and emotional components of eating disorders we are better able to holistically evaluate the impact of treatment and, if needed, make modifications or add adjunctive treatments. 

 

We are currently in the first stages of presenting our findings. Recently, Dr. Anita Federici has shared the research we have gathered at the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration conference in hopes to inform practitioners of significant findings we have gathered on our measures. We hope to take our results and utilize the data to better improve our programs, treatment, and experience of our clients as we help them through their recovery. Drs. Lucene Wisniewski and Denise Ben-Porath have also published several articles in the area of DBT, eating disorders, and treatment outcomes.  

 

To read the abstracts of articles published by Drs. Wisniewski and Ben-Porath please click the links below: