A professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in California has conducted a randomized clinical trial that compares two forms of family therapy for anorexia problems.
James Lock is co-author, along with Stewart Agras, who emphasizes the idea of treating the disorder in adolescence, because it is much more difficult for adults
Anorexia is a very serious disease that mostly affects teenage girls (although it is observed in lower ages), and comparing it with other psychiatric disorders, it is associated with very high suicide figures. On the other hand, and due to the distorted perception developed by those affected, it is very complicated to deal with, and it is a very large emotional burden for families, without having the resources they should use in the search for solutions.
The two researchers belong to the School of Medicine of the aforementioned University, and have published the work in Jama Psychiatry (also in the Archives of General Psychiatry). Both bet to involve the families of girls and boys who suffer from anorexia, because after all a family is still a system, and you want to change something within it, everyone must be accepted in the actions that are carried out.
As I said, the work is an essay, but it shows how to focus on the family as an agent that can cause changes, It is more profitable for patients and family, it also works faster. The treated adolescents were between 12 and 18 years old (they were a total of 167 people), and they had an average of 13.5 months suffering from anorexia; Almost 90 percent were girls.
Regarding parental involvement, in 100 percent of the cases, one of the two parents has been counted during the 16 one-hour therapeutic sessions, and for nine months. The treatment has been evaluated at the end of the period and after one year after completion.
Family-based therapy
We are used to seeing or living scenes in which parents or children are excluded from therapeutic sessions: “let the child stay out and we and you talk”, “no, you cannot enter, then I will tell you”. When treatments are very focused on a certain person, considering it a problem, progress is much slower. Not to mention that many times a certain difficulty, it is nothing more than a symptom of family relationships (perceived or not) more complex; it seems clear that by having everyone's help, you gain in effectiveness.
Thus, if anorexia is affecting more people besides the sick, it is logical to think that they all get involved. Lock and Agras have compared two types of family therapy
The treatments studied have been developed in six different places in Canada and the United States. One of the approaches is that parents can be taught so that they help their children to eat normally, regaining weight. In this case it is believed that parents are able to alter behaviors that maintain anorexia, until those thoughts and perceptions around it decrease.
Effectiveness based on cost savings and evident results
In the type of previous therapy, fewer days of hospitalization were generally needed, which translates into less time spent away from the family; these teenagers also gained weight faster. The other treatment studied was to solve difficult family dynamics; and it was more effective for patients who had associated symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In both tested treatments, a trained therapist met regularly with the patient and at least one other family member
From this (good) news, I am left with the idea of including the relatives of the girls and the anorexic boys in the treatments, seeing that this gives good results. It is also important to be given visibility, because although the incidence is not as high (about 4 percent) as obesity, it is a disorder with very serious health consequences if it is not treated properly.
Images | Anthony Albright, Leslie Science & Nature Center
Via | ABC
More information | Stanford University
In Peques and More | Ana and Mia are not princesses, nor are they the friends of your children: watch out for these pages on the Internet, Guidelines to prevent eating disorders in children and adolescents from home
