Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment

Important new evidence was released on Monday Oct 4th in the Archives of General Psychiatry, validating that Maudsley Family Based Therapy is far superior to other treatment modalities. A study conducted at the University of Chicago and Stanford University on the effects of Maudsley Therapy on patients with anorexia nervosa found at the end of a year in Maudsley therapy, 42% of patients were considered to be in remission from their eating disorder, meaning that they were within 5% of their healthy body weight. This can be compared to 23% of patients in remission after only being in individual therapy. Perhaps even more remarkable is that after an additional year, nearly 50% of patients who had been in Maudsley therapy were considered to be in remission, as compared to the same 23% of clients in individual therapy. Essentially this means that adolescents who do Maudsley treatment have a much higher likelihood of continuing to get better over time than adolescents who do individual therapy. This may also mean that clients who do Maudsley Family Therapy refeed faster and experience longer lasting effects than those in other forms of therapy.
 
It is hard to learn that a child has an eating disorder, and then to hear that the treatment for that disorder will potentially be disruptive for your child and your family. However, the evidence for Maudsley at this point is clear and overwhelming. A child with anorexia should be in family based therapy as a first line of care before anything else is tried. There is no other treatment that offers your child as good of a chance for recovery as family based treatment.
 
CCED is the only Maudsley Family Based Therapy center in Northeast Ohio. Dr. Jorey Friedman Beegun, our director of adolescent and family based services, is one of the few certified Family Based Therapists in the United States. If you would like your child to have access to our services please contact our intake staff at (216) 765-0500.

For more information on this important study please visit the following links:

Wall Street Journal

University of Chicago

NPR

Should you have any questions or comments regarding this post please email blog@eatingdisorderscleveland.org.

Contributions by Sarah Emerman