Living With Food: The Science Supporting Eating Disorder Treatment

We are excited to tell you about a current publication by CCED’s Drs Anita Federici and Lucene Wisniewski in A Collaborative Approach to Eating Disorders edited by June Alexander and Janet Treasure. The article, titled "Integrating dialectical behavioral therapy and family-based treatment for multidiagnostic adolescent patients", gives a brief overview of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Family Based Therapy, along with a rational on why an integration of these two treatment modalities may be beneficial for multi-diagnostic adolescents. The article suggests that a collaboration between FBT and DBT therapies will help historically difficult to treat adolescents manage self-injurious behaviors (eating disorder and otherwise) by focusing largely on emotion regulation in the midst of participating in an FBT model. Furthermore, a focus on radical acceptance of the current treatment plan and a balance between change and validation serve to help the adolescent and their family decrease blame and increase a non-judgmental stance throughout the recovery process. Research is currently being conducted at CCED on the effectiveness of the integration of these two models.

For more information please read Federici, A. & Wisniewski, L. (2012). Integrating dialectical behavioral therapy and family-based treatment for multidiagnostic adolescent patients. In Alexander, J. & Treasure, J. (Eds.), A collaborative approach to eating disorders (177-188). New York: Routledge.

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