Background: Working as a team in a developing country, we note an increasing trend of fathers positively influencing patients’ recovery. This workshop highlights the relevance and practicality of our creative techniques using a case based approach, focusing especially on the father's role in management and how it can transform patient outcome.
Course Outline
- Exploration and formulation of team approach to treatment (break out groups on forming an eating disorder treatment team)—
i) Assessment of personalities, strengths and weaknesses and ways of complementing each other in the team approach
ii) Explore factors that may hinder or assist ability to accept constructive criticism and support from team members and nurture willingness to work as team
- Understanding the concept of father hunger, theory and background (thinking level)
- Facilitate exploration in identifying roles played by each parent in the facilitation or inhibition of the physical and psychological growth (guided journaling).
- Facilitate exploration of inner experiences, blocks and willingness in embracing support (group exercise)
- Connecting the physical and the mental changes in the journey of recovery (case studies and small group discussion)
- Q & A
The prevalence of eating disorders in Jamaica is generally viewed by its populace as very few in numbers to non-existent. For this reason the country has not yet evolved to a level that provides adequate care for its sufferers. Currently the island has only three trained specialists to cater to this unique population. Despite these limitations we continue to research and discover innovative ways of treating our patients. This workshop challenges notions of the non-existence of eating disorders in Jamaica while informing widely about patient care and intervention in a developing, country with severely limited availability of specialized care for eating disorders. We would like to highlight some creative approaches in using psychological and medical interventions, cultural understanding and the involvement of fathers in promoting recovery of their daughters (and sons) from an eating disorder. Though research has highlighted the effects of the father - daughter relationship and its impact on the development of the eating disorder, very little has been done on using father hunger as a method to help patients become more involved and motivated in recovery. The goal of this workshop is to not only show evidence supporting the father hunger technique but to educate practitioners on how they can incorporate this technique in their own practices, specifically where resources are limited.
Caryl James is a Clinical Psychologist and Eating Disorder Specialist employed to the University of the West Indies, Mona as a full-time Lecturer. She is an advocate for raising eating disorder awareness in the Caribbean and works diligently with eating disorder sufferers and family members. Caryl is the pioneer behind the first International Eating Disorder conference ‘Dying to be Beautiful? Body Image, Eating Behaviours and Health in the Caribbean'. In the international community she actively informs about the Caribbean culture and its impact on the presentation and treatment of eating disorders.
Abigail Harrison is a consultant pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist and lecturer at the University of the West Indies. She is the founder and director of the Teen and Young Families clinics at the UHWI. Her research interests include adolescent health screening and disordered eating behaviors in adolescents. She is a member of the Pediatric Association of Jamaica (PAJ) and several organizations that take special interest in the physical and mental health of adolescents. As the first Adolescent Medicine trained physician in Jamaica, she advocates for continued improvement of adolescent health care in Jamaica and the Caribbean, through collaborative efforts.
