Treatment Manual for Anorexia Nervosa, Second Edition: A Family-Based Approach

This book is excellent as a resource for those dealing with anorexia themselves or as a family member. I am a mom of a daughter who struggles greatly with this illness and I am very educated about her he disease. This book is a great guideline—either to read or to look up specific concerns. This is my personal second favorite book next to “Brave Girl Eating”!

Although I am a well trained child psychiatrist and somehow an experienced clinician, I have no formal training in FBT for eating disorders. However, I am treating my first case of a young girl suffering from AN following the directives of this manual, with excelent results so far.I truly recommend this excellent book.

Really like this book. Details how each session should go. Can't wait to see if it is a success with clients.

This is a useful book!

This book was purchased for my mum and she said it is amazing, has helped her a lot with everything

Relevant

Both FBT and CBT-E have been found to be equally as effective for treating adolescents with AN.* The only difference being the refeed is faster with FBT because it is essentially forced from the get go. CBT-E has the important advantage of being less traumatic to those suffering. When given the choice between 2 equally effective therapies, why choose the one that repeatedly floods a child’s system with cortisol and unbearable anxiety?The inability to look at root causes in FBT may be comforting to parents seeking to avoid being blamed, but it turns a blind eye to decades of research in the eating disorder field. The fact that it is such an integral core element of FBT (and denial of parental ‘blame’ something of a mantra amongst its most ardent defenders) should raise alarm bells. Of course family dynamics and dysfunction matter in child and adolescent mental health. That should not be a controversial point (PARTICULARLY in light of decades of eating disorder research).If you look online for critiques of FBT you will certainly find them. It encourages externalizing the disorder and many parents unfortunately take this to mean their child is possessed by a ‘monster’ or ‘demon’ they are justified to defeat at all costs. That is a retrograde way to approach treatment for mental illness, to say the least. If you go to pro-FBT websites and forums you will find what I believe to be examples of abusive parental behavior.I am not accusing the authors of ascribing to any of these extreme practices, nor do I mean to say that FBT should never be used. I AM saying that its limitations and uses need a serious and considered evaluation in the best interest of those suffering eating disorders. The levels is distress which so many patients undergo is in my view completely unjustifiable.* see: Le Grange, D., Eckhardt, S., Dalle Grave, R., Crosby, R., Peterson, C., Keery, H., . . . Martell, C. (2020). Enhanced cognitive-behavior therapy and family-based treatment for adolescents with an eating disorder: A non-randomized effectiveness trial. Psychological Medicine, 1-11. doi:10.1017/S0033291720004407

Easy to read and very helpfully for providing FBT.

A present didn't read

Great book

good

This is actually a textbook for therapists, so not brilliant for families coping with the disease, although it does explain the approach used in family based treatment.