Eating disorders are often identified as being highly complicated in terms of treatment and long-term recovery, especially in anorexia where life-threatening complications may occur. Several examples of approaches to the treatment of eating disorders may include the following: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT). This article aims to focus on one such treatment method with the key areas listed below.
- What is psychoeducation?
- Implications for eating disorders
- Key benefits
What is Psychoeducation for Eating disorders?
Psychoeducation may be used in both group work and in individual therapy sessions. This is (true to its name) a form of therapy that is strongly education-based and is aimed at teaching sufferers the basic facts to both inform about and enable discussion about the complications and implications associated with the illness. In essence, pscyhoeducation is a term that may be used to describe any education that is provided to aid a patient to greater understand as well as begin to evaluate the relationship they share with their health problem.
This approach, in order to be the most effective, requires the educator to work in a non-judgmental, respectful manner and is best used when CBT tools are also included.
Psychoeducation Implications for Eating Disorders
This approach is extremely useful for helping eating disorder sufferers to comprehend their illness in greater depth and is ideally used both early on in treatment and reviewed ad therapy proceeds when it is deemed necessary. As highlighted by Waller et al. (2007), psychoeducation topics are likely to include the following four components: practical information on how to improve one's food intake, health consequences, perpetuating factors as well as basic nutritional facts/principles. This is further broken down into two main areas, psychological impacts of starvation and the energy requirements to function normally which aim to help the sufferer in engaging in both cognitive (thinking) and behaviour changes. Key myths and misconceptions commonly believed about eating disorders will also usually be examined as well as the dangers associated with purging behaviours such as laxative abuse, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, diuretics and emetics.
Key Benefits of Psychoeducation for Eating Disorders
There are several benefits of using psychoeducation to treat eating disorders which include the following: cost-effective, practical, provides essential knowledge about risks/complications, helps patients test out new knowledge when combined with CBT skills and can be used in a variety of different settings.
Sources:
Freeman, C. (2002) Overcoming Anorexia Nervosa London: Constable Robinson
Waller et al. (2007) CBT For Eating Disorders Cambridge University Press
Kate Le Page - Kate Henning-Le Page writes about eating disorders, body image and recovery issues. She specializes in anorexia recovery.
