Category: Psychotherapy

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Psychotherapy approaches: which might help?

There are a huge number of psychotherapy methods out there. It’s helpful for us parents to know a little about them, both so we can assess what’s being offered to our kids and so we can find something for ourselves.

In my book I explain how psychotherapy is not a first line of treatment for anorexia in children and adolescents, and how (as in Family-Based Treatment (FBT or ‘Maudsley’) it may not be needed at all. However, it is often offered, and you will have to judge if that is appropriate or not, depending on the stage your child is at in treatment, or depending on what you’re needing for yourself.

I’ll share what I know about some of the methods, and hope it helps you in your own search.

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Eating disorders: understand where psychotherapists are coming from

Many psychotherapists’ training places great importance in finding the ‘underlying causes’ of patients’ problems. If their approach is relational or psychodynamic (founded on psychoanalysis), their model is that in order to get better, the patient needs insight: ‘What caused my problem?’ And if you ignore causes, even causes from your earliest childhood, your problems will spill out in other domains.

For a clinical psychologist who hasn’t specialised in eating disorders, it is counter-intuitive to ignore early childhood or family dynamics.

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Don’t beat up your child (or yourself) for failing in spite of therapy

Anyone who engages with psychotherapy is showing courage and willingness to make changes and take risks. The greater the changes, the more we’re likely to stumble and fail for a while. It takes time to use new tools. I make a plea to all families to be patient with the process and to resist criticising and lecturing every time the person having therapy fails to apply it. ‘Stop shouting and do your bloody CBT!’ isn’t going to work.

You yourself may be trying to apply some of what you’ve read here.