Treating Bulimia in Adolescents: A Family-Based Approach

If your a parent with a bulimica child, this book has the insight to what you need.Just to warn you, it is advanced stuff. You may need a dictionary and you may need to commmit a lot of time to get what you need out of this book-to help your child. But look, God made us to think and what could motivate us to learn even difficult things more than saving our own children.Bulimia is serious and may lead to anorexia- which is potentially fatal.Please be encouraged that there is help for your child, but not without a cost-you may need to work your brain really hard.Studies have found that therapists treatment is less successful than a parents healthy involvement.

This was written like an instruction manual to putting together your next stereo. It was dry and without life, when the intent is to promote well-being.

An excellent Maudesley model treatment manual for clinicians to use in treating Bulimia Nervosa. The authors chose to address Bulimia in a separate edition from their first manual, TREATMENT MANUAL FOR ANOREXIA NERVOSA. The psychological and family dynamics are somewhat different in Bulimia, though the family centered approach is essentially the same. With treatment broken down session by session, it becomes possible for for most clinicians with a family therapy background to deliver effective treatment to bulimic teenagers and their families - with minimal additional training.As with with the anorexia manual, the approach is very prescriptive - from the initial "intense scene" where the therapist informs the parents that their child has a fair chance of dying unless they both take a leave of absence from work to personally supervize her meals - to the insistence the parents take charge of the patient's eating, compulsive exercising and purging - until she successfully frees herself from the spell bulimia holds over her.As with anorexia, the second session always involves a picnic lunch the family brings to the office - enabling the therapist to "coach" the parents on getting their daughter to eat. This is followed by weekly visits to ensure the family is continuing to provide close supervision of dietary choices, meals, exercise and purging.In treating bulimia the main focus is not weight restoration (often bulimic patients are sightly overweight), but ending the cycle of binging and purging (either via self-induced vomiting or laxative abuse). There also tend to be more co-occurring psychiatric conditions (most commonly depression and suicide ideation) with bulimia, which may need to be addressed first.On average, it takes around 10 to 12 weeks for bulimic symtpoms to come under control. At that point the family enters Phase II, a 3-4 month transitional phase, during which the teenager resumes more control over her own eating and the family begins to work on autonomy issues (issues relating to the teenager separating and becoming independent from her parents). The latter tend to be more prominent in bulimic than anorexic patients.Phase III consists of 3-4 sessions one month apart, during which the family and therapist practice problem solving around typical adolescent issues and develop a relapse prevention plan.