Treatment Options: After the evaluation, will receive the recommendations for the patient to start treatment.
There is no standardized method for treating eating disorders “is the best treatment that gives results.”
The important thing is that the program is comprehensive, combining psychotherapy and nutrition therapy counseling and assistance, if necessary, specialized medical care
1. Individual psychotherapy: perhaps the most important aspect of therapy is to develop a warm relationship between patient and therapist.
People affected often find it difficult to trust others. You need a high degree of confidence by the patient to trust the therapist. The patient must abandon their fears and begin to develop normal eating habits.
2. Traditional psychotherapy: The media in this psychotherapy encourage the patient to reflect on his childhood dreams and unexpressed feelings for, thereby acquiring a new perception of their current behavior.
Recognizing the role of these subliminal influences, the patient will acquire a new perception of their actions and change.
This kind of therapy is better as an accessory to other methods. Today, psychologists know that knowledge about the roots of a person’s behavior, will not you change this behavior unless you change the eating habits of the patient. Many of them spend years in traditional therapy without ever revealing that they have a disorder.
Moreover, as the patient gains control of the diet, traditional psychotherapy can help you identify and manage some of the feelings that contribute to the disorder.
3. Behavior Modification: This form of therapy completely ignores the underlying feelings and focuses only on changing behavior. The behavior modification works on a principle: to reinforce a desired behavior through rewards and punish or ignore unwanted behavior.
This form of therapy works best when the patient is admitted to the hospital, where staff can answer incentives such as TV or excursions, …
When first applied this method gave good results, but unfortunately were only temporarily. The patients found the hospital stay so unpleasant that performed the desired behavior is only enough to be discharged and once out, they returned to their old ways.
4. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) combines the best aspects of traditional psychotherapy and behavior modification.
This method requires knowledge and challenge self-destructive behaviors and thoughts, followed by appropriate changes in behavior.
This therapy involves the following steps:
* Reinforce knowledge of the patient, their own thinking patterns.
* Teach him to recognize the connection between certain feelings, self-destructive thoughts and behavior disordered eating.
* Replace the erroneous beliefs more appropriate ideas.
* Gradually changing the fundamental assumptions that underlie the development of eating disorders.
It is often assumed “mistaken beliefs” at one time or another, the difference is that for a patient with anorexia are more extreme these beliefs. Some of these thoughts are typical:
- Thinking black or white / all or nothing: it is the conviction that if everything is not perfect, disaster is just around the corner.
- Errors of attribution: for example, when an anorexic bluntly state that has gained a kilo just by eating a pie last week when in reality this weight gain was because I was at the time of the menstrual period, which always made retain fluids.
- Magical Thinking: the minor food indulgence in the “forbidden” means instant obesity. Some people say, “My body does not tolerate carbohydrates, instantly becomes the fat” or “I’m addicted to sugar,” “I taste something sweet and I lose control.” Such ideas attributed unreal and almost magical properties to food and the human body. In these cases, the best look at a book on nutrition or help from an expert in nutrition programs to explain to the patient as the body metabolizes food, in order to help her understand that there is no food called “bad”.
- Customization: Anne, an anorexic for 15 years, spent the holidays in the treatment of eating disorder when she returned to school and had gained 3 or 4 kilos. Her teacher saw her and said, ‘Anne, you’re great!!, Did you have a good summer? “. During the day Anne lamented: “Have I gained so much that people notice?, Did she know that I was subjected to therapy?”. Anne had taken the polite comment from her teacher as a drama, perhaps a reflection of low self-esteem that characterized his illness.
- Exaggeration: Anne’s reaction to her teacher’s comment is an example of overstatement: the tendency to deorbit things. The comment from the teacher became a belief.
Conclusion: CBT has been practiced successfully in patients with bulimia and has been recommended for treating anorexia nervosa but their long-term effect on the latter is not known with certainty.