Background: This workshop offers a unique opportunity to trace the long-term, at times stormy, course of a series of treatments initiated when the patient was 13 years old, the last episode ending when she was 38. The challenges were many, as were, at least in her view, the mistakes. Now without a single symptom of illness, and after earning her doctorate in psychology, she offers a perspective on her experience. A well-known clinician/scientist who has followed her care, offers his.
Objectives: 1) Following this workshop, participants will know how to define recovery in anorexia nervosa. 2) Following this workshop, participants will better understand treatment related impediments to beneficial outcome in therapy. 3) Following this workshop, participants will better understand subtleties in the management of treatment of anorexia nervosa and important elements in the psychotherapeutic relationship.
Recovery from anorexia nervosa (AN) follows an unpredictable path. Rarely does it come quick; there is no single trajectory, no infallible indicators of how a treatment will play out. Opinions about the recovery process vary, depending on whose perspective is being sought. The patient—the former patient—sees it one way, but there is no guarantee that the opinion of others, therapist, partners, loved ones will concur.
This workshop addresses the question in a unique fashion: A former patient, a doctoral level psychologist, will share her account of a treatment that unfolded over 25 years; a well-known authority—he has investigated and treated eating disorders for more than four decades, who has observed the care she received from a distance, will offer his point of view as Discussant.
Several points will be discussed. Importantly, the former patient will consider (1) how each of the treatment experiences varied in philosophy and the specifics of the management approach; (2) how the various treatments were directed and integrated across the multi-disciplinary staff; (3) how her protests and resistances—and there were many—were addressed, with what explanations; (4) whether withholding information about weight change (although her treatment experiences were not consistent in this regard) was beneficial in any way to the ultimate recovery, and did her point of view change over time; and finally (5), looking back, what aspects of this treatment are now recalled as influential, elements seen in a positive light, elements perceived as detrimental.
The Discussant will offer a perspective taking into consideration what is known about AN, and how this knowledge can, and should, guide the treatment process.
B. Differences in treatment philosopy and methods, and the conflicts that these differences created for the patient as they encountered her resistance.
C. Differences in how the family was involved in each treatment setting.
D. Ultimately, what did the patient perceive as crucial to her ultimate recovery.
Michael Strober is a clinical psychologist who has served on the UCLA School of Medicine faculty since 1975. He has been Director of the Eating Disorders Program at the Neuropsychiatric Institute since 1982, and Director of the Adolescent Mood Disorders Program since 1989. Dr. Strober is past President of the Eating Disorders Research Society, and is a founding Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders. Since 1983 he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Eating Disorders. His research centers on risk factors in eating disorders and the long-term course, outcome and treatment of juvenile mood disorders.
See CV
