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Family-Based Treatment (FBT) is a widely used technique for treating teenagers with anorexia. however, it is often misunderstood – much to the detriment of those teenagers who could benefit. we hope this short article will give you the information you need to make better decisions regarding FBT.

FBT has been a hot topic in the news as of late, mostly in response to the excellent work done by James Lock, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Stanford and psychiatric director of the Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

His study, published on October 4, 2010 in the Archives of General Psychiatry, compared FBT to “individual psychotherapy” – which has been the cornerstone of anorexia therapy for several years. Individual psychotherapy focuses on enhancing autonomy, self-efficacy, individuation, and assertiveness. On the other hand, FBT promotes parental control of weight restoration and the enhancement of family functioning (specifically regarding adolescent development).

The study reports that:

1. Family-based treatment (FBT) is more effective than traditional adolescent-focused individual therapy (AFT) in treating youths with anorexia nervosa.   2. “We found that on average, [FBT] was about twice as effective at promoting full weight restoration and recovery of eating disorder symptoms compared with individual therapy. Both treatments were helpful in improving symptoms to a certain degree, but family treatment was twice as effective in getting someone well.”   3. This study strongly suggests that, as a first-line treatment, in general, family-based interventions are superior.

Results like these are wonderful news for parents, as it gives them hope, direction and insight as to the best way to pursue treatment for their affected children…So why all the confusion?

FBT is often misunderstood in a variety of ways. Most importantly, many parents seem to think that “family therapy” is aimed at uncovering the parent’s mistakes – as if it was the parents who are to blame for the eating disorder. many forms of family therapy do appear to blame families for “mistakes” and the notion of receiving therapy as a family may even imply to some that they have made mistakes and need to correct them.

This is not a correct understanding of FBT. unfortunately, this seems to be “turning off” parents to FBT – and it’s time to put an end to this erroneous belief.

The main goal of FBT is to help parents understand their child’s disease. Including parents (and other family members) in treatment, and assisting them in promoting change in the home environment, is an integral strategy of FBT.

FBT promotes parental control of weight restoration while enhancing family function as it relates to the adolescent’s development. the treatment usually has three phases:

Phase 1: help absolve the parents from the responsibility of causing the disorder and to compliment them on their positive parenting skills. Phase 2: help the parents to transition eating and weight control back to the adolescent in an age-appropriate way. Phase 3: Emphasize a healthy adolescent relationship with the parents.

We here at EatingKids.com sincerely hope we’ve helped to dis-spell your apprehensions about Family-Based Treatment. we hope you will seek out qualified, caring therapists who can help you to implement this technique. we wish this for your sake, and for the sake of your child.