A multi‐family group day treatment programme for adolescent eating disorder

Abstract

We describe a new treatment for the outpatient management of disabling eating disorder in adolescents. The pilot programme has thus far treated 14 adolescents, half with anorexia nervosa and half with bulimia. Most of the young people had been previously admitted or the current referral was for admission. None of the patients has subsequently had to be taken into an inpatient service and the preliminary results suggest that the programme may be bene®cial. The programme has elicited a very positive response from the patients and their families. For the professionals involved, the experience of participating in the multi-family group treatment has been unusual and powerful and the training opportunities provided by it seem rather unique. This has led us to make this preliminary communication. We describe the context and structure of the programme and give some details of the patients so far treated.

Intensive multi‐family therapy for adolescent anorexia nervosa: an open study of 30 families

“…In accordance with previous clinic reports in the literature (Dare and Eisler, ; Scholz and Asen, ), families in this study reported high satisfaction with MFT, which was reflected in a low rate of dropout from the treatment. As in previous studies of satisfaction with family therapy (Krautter and Lock, ) the patients’ satisfaction with treatment was lower than either that of their father or mother.…”

Intensive multi‐family therapy for adolescent anorexia nervosa: adolescents’ and parents’ day‐to‐day experiences

“…The support and solidarity that most of the participants described as having experienced in the group, as well as the mutual learning they achieved has, again, been well documented in previous work (Dare and Eisler, ; Scholz and Asen, ). However, this has to be contrasted with the consistent sense of isolation that most participants reported in the rating scales.…”

Augmentative Approaches in Family‐Based Treatment for Adolescents with Restrictive Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review

“…FBT, structural therapy, and systemic‐therapy based techniques similar to those above (Dare & Eisler, ), with integration of CBT exposure techniques to reduce food avoidance…”

“…Content as above in Dare and Eisler (), delivered in intensive 3 consecutive days with 5 monthly 1‐day modules…”

“…Maudsley Multiple Family Therapy (MFT) for AN (described in Dare & Eisler, ; manualised in Eisler et al, 2016b)…”