Common practice in the treatment of adolescent eating disorder patients has been to exclude the parents. Many experts consider parents part of the problem and thus keep them away during therapy.
Two U.S.–based clinicians disagree and have written a "how to" book published in February that includes family in the treatment of these patients. They say parents are well poised to help their children overcome bulimia nervosa, a disorder characterized by binging and purging.
The book, designed for clinicians who deal with adolescent bulimia nervosa patients, will no doubt be discovered and used by desperate parents, too, the authors speculate.
Treating Bulimia in Adolescents is the third in a trilogy of books written by Daniel le Grange, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and director of the eating disorders program at the University of Chicago, and James Lock, MD, PhD, professor of child psychiatry and pediatrics at Stanford University.
The duo wrote the parents guide Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder in 2005 and collaborated with two colleagues to write Treatment Manual for Anorexia Nervosa, a clinical guide for clinicians, published in 2001.
“We found many parents using the Treatment Manual for Anorexia Nervosa , even though it was designed for clinicians, simply because it gave them step-by-step advice on what should be done. We think we'll find the same thing with the bulimia book,” Le Grange said. “And because bulimia affects more adolescents than does anorexia nervosa, there might be greater demand for it.”
“We don't see parents as the culprit," he added. "We see them as a valuable resource in the treatment of these adolescents. Our goal is to empower parents to feed their kids. Feeding kids is something they do well.”
Le Grange learned this approach at the Maudsley Hospital in London, known for its family-based approach. It has proven effective in treatment of anorexic adolescents and is being studied for efficacy with bulimic adolescents. But to date, nobody has written a manual for practitioners.
“Something else quite different about this approach is that it takes place in an outpatient setting, in 15 to 20 50-minute visits," Le Grange said. "Other methods to treat bulimia entail hospitalization or day-long visits. The Maudsley approach is truly a minimalist approach.”