Eating Disorders

On the first day of treatment (inpatient or outpatient), the patient is handed this workbook and asked to complete the eating disorder questionnaire, thus beginning the process of having the patient confront the secrecy of their eating disorder. The therapist, or family member, reads the literature in the workbook and reviews the patient's answers and begins to understand the dynamics and the physical and emotional pain of the person with an eating disorder. The patient proceeds to move through the four levels of treatment, setting goals at each level that are reviewed by the therapist and the treatment team. The patient will continue to answer questionnaires, learn the program guidelines for meal monitoring and behavior, write essays, and begin dealing with the challenges of being honest, dealing with anger, confronting fear, taking responsibility, and learning to persevere in treatment. The patients in these programs are often resistant to treatment, seeing their identity as an anorexic patient or a bulimic patient. Through intensive therapy, and using this workbook, these patients begin to see that they are a person that has an eating disorder illness. They begin to reclaim the personality they had prior to their illness, and they gain self-acceptance and self-esteem. They come to realize that their illness is not their identity.