Background: This workshop examines the psychological complexity of eating disorders and explores the benefits of a cutting edge transdiagnostic treatment that emphasizes emotional exposure. Though experiential demonstration this workshop will apply concepts from David Barlow’s Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders to the treatment of complex eating disorders.
- Patient Complexity and its Components
- Etiological and Maintaining Factors
- Research-Practice Gap
- Benefits of a Transdiagnostic model for the complex patient
- The Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP)
- Motivation Enhancement for Treatment Engagement
- Emotion Awareness Training
- Cognitive Appraisals
- Emotion Exposures
- Understanding Eating Disorders as Emotional Disorders
- Emotional avoidance
- Emotion-Driven behaviors
- Experiential demonstrations of emotion exposure techniques
- Mood Induction
- Interoceptive exercise
This workshop examines the psychological complexity of eating disorders and explores the benefits of a cutting edge, evidence-based transdiagnostic treatment which focuses on emotional exposure. There is growing evidence that emotional avoidance is a maintaining factor for eating disorders, as well as co-morbid conditions such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse and trauma response. Treatment which specifically focuses on targeting emotional avoidance and developing emotional awareness, tolerance and acceptance can provide an integrated, unified approach to resolve the myriad of symptoms which are often associated with the complex eating disorder client. Through experiential demonstration this workshop will apply concepts from David Barlow’s Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders, to the treatment of complex eating disorders.
Gayle Brooks, PhD, is Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for The Renfrew Center. Dr. Brooks leads the Renfrew Clinical Excellence Board and the Clinical Training Department. For the past 25 years, she has treated patients from diverse backgrounds who suffer from eating disorders. Dr. Brooks served as the eating disorders specialist in the HBO film Thin, has appeared on Good Morning America. A frequent presenter at conferences and workshops, Dr. Brooks speaks on topics such as the treatment of the complex patient, cultural diversity, the interplay between eating disorders and trauma, and eating disorders in mid-life women.
Melanie Smith, LMHC is the Program & Training Manager at The Renfrew Center of Florida. She received her Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi. Melanie has extensive training in the Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP) and is a Certified UP Therapist (Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Boston University). Melanie oversees The Renfrew Center of Florida’s clinical group therapy programming and is a member of the corporate Clinical Training Department that is responsible for developing and implementing clinical training and programming consistent with evidence-based practice across the Renfrew system.
