The approach that is right for you is dependent on a few factors, such as the individual’s specific symptoms, strengths, background, and psychological and physical issues, as well as the magnitude of the disorder.  Generally, residential treatment programs that encourage a healthy relationship with eating, educate on constructive methods to cope with challenges and stressors, and pay close attention to nutritional and medical requirements, are very effective.  For the majority of those suffering from eating disorders, successful treatment contains the following features:

Approaching Treatment with Nurture and Care

Just like everyone is different, every eating disorder experience is different.  With that in mind, eating disorder specialists have come to an agreement in the past decade concerning the most effective method of treatment.  Unlike treatment for drug addiction or alcoholism, which may be confrontational and aggressive, researchers have observed that a nurturing, esteem-building, and caring environment works best for eating disorder treatment.

A Staff with a Unified Team of Eating Disorder Specialists

To recover from any eating disorder, you must have a support group in place consisting of those closest to you and eating disorder specialists.  There are different approaches that may be taken in the treatment of eating disorders, but the most crucial characteristic of any program is that every single member of the treatment team deploys a similar treatment method and show a united front.

In The Eating Disorder Solution, a book by Barbara Cole, MFT, Psy.D., clinical director at The Victorian, a internationally-recognized residential eating disorder treatment center in Newport Beach, California that also helps women with co-occurring substance abuse issues, educates us on the reasons a unified team approach is so vital:

The eating disorder thought process, better known as the evil adversary, senses even the tiniest changes that is brought to interfere with it and leverage this rebellious voice to cause pandemonium and confusion in any apparent group uprising against the eating disorder.  Typically, this turmoil appears in instances such as when a group of friends intervenes on the illness in one way while the other with a different method, one caregiver antagonized against the other, or when one family member communicates the eating disorder in a different way to another family member.

The person suffering from the throes of the eating disorder goes to any means necessary to put one caregiver or loved one against the other.  This ultimately sabotages treatment, resulting in the sufferer to validate her beliefs of being unlovable and unworthy, and making the family and close ones feel more discouraged and hopeless.

Dr. Cole explains that even though the eating disordered person may appear firm in resisting help or refusing treatment, those actions are really a call for help.  The team that is providing treatment has to be more than just unified and cohesive to respond effectively.  They must also be supportive and patient to the utmost.

Comprehensive and Balanced Healing of Spirit, Body, and Soul

Serious medical complications accompany eating disorders.  These health concerns range from seizures and heart arrhythmias to anemia and dehydration, many of which involve rigorous treatment and monitoring.  However, the attention to these problems is just one portion of eating disorder recovery.  To be successful, an eating disorder treatment program has to also evaluate the sufferer’s mental state and consistently strive to change these negative, engrained ways of thinking that is characteristic of any eating disorder.

Recovery programs that concentrate on nourishment, as well as service and the importance of giving back, can help soothe the soul and bring the eating disorder sufferer back into the feeling that she is part of the community at large.  Eating disorder victims typically have a strong need to give back and are selfless in nature, according to Dr. Cole. By emphasizing these positive traits to the sufferer, it gives them a reinvigorated passion for life and a renewed purpose.

Choosing Residential over Outpatient or Individual Treatment

To successfully recover from any eating disorder, there must be individualized, structured, and consistent evaluation and treatment.  For most patients, treatment in an outpatient environment or individual treatment is not structured enough in order to prompt lasting and permanent change in their eating disordered actions and thoughts.

“It is rare that individual therapy can be successful in curing the victim of their eating disorder thought process,” says Dr. Cole. “A lot of those who claim to have been cured of their eating disorder by individual therapy are sometimes observed as still having eating disordered thoughts.  These thoughts attach themselves to other addictive behaviors.”

You may think that the eating disorder has vanished, but it probably has reappeared in other forms, such as relationship issues, promiscuity, substance abuse, workaholism, or other addictions.  In order to achieve the best results, the treatment staff must be aware of these trends and be prepared to spot other addictive behaviors and patterns.

Loved ones and family members sometimes prefer outpatient treatment because they think the eating disorder appears to be subsiding (i.e. the sufferer looks like they are gaining weight) and she can resume going to school, going about her daily life, or working.  However, in most cases, the eating disorder is more powerful than the loved ones or victim thinks and treatment ultimately fails.

Dr. Cole warns in The Eating Disorder Solution:

The moment someone with an eating disorder leaves the outpatient group, psychiatrist, nutritionist, or therapist, he or she is overwhelmed with a progressively more powerful set of harmful thoughts that they must impulsively act upon since beyond the outpatient experience, there is nothing that can stand in the way of stopping these behaviors. …Professionals who see patients suffering from a controlling eating disorder thought process in outpatient therapy actually unintentionally adds to the evolution of the disorder itself.

The reasons that residential treatment facilities are able to achieve better results are many, including: constant access to therapy and support for the eating disorder sufferer, active involvement for families through family therapy sessions and monitoring, and a team that closely supervises meal times and meal plans.

“In the evaluation of options for treatment, it is more economical and effective to choose the ‘right’ process the first time, as opposed to doing it half-way (as in compromising with the victim and choosing his or her own method of treating their eating disorder) and have to endure going through primary treatment an average of a whopping five times,” warns Dr. Cole.

Step-Down Levels of Care and Aftercare

“Generally, eating disorders can not be cured after just 30 days of treatment,” stresses Elaine Alexander, MA, LMFT, a certified eating disorder specialist and the Vice President of Eating Disorders for CRC Health Group (a recognized leader in the providing specialized behavioral health care services in the United States).  “Changes in behavior require a certain amount of time.  It takes about 30 days to accept to change, around 60 days to implement it, and approximately 90 days to adjust to change.  When it comes to eating disorder sufferers, there needs to be time to gain weight, repair functioning in the brain and the body, familiarize themselves with new life skills, and concentrate on underlying psychological and emotional issues that more often than not has been slowly building for a long time.”

The most successful eating disorder treatment programs comprehend the fact that the recovery process takes time and is gradual.  Any form of treatment has to be ongoing.  Following the completion of primary treatment, those healing from their eating disorder should slowly build up their contact to real-life activities and stressors within the first year of recovery, finally ending up in an outpatient program (like Overeater’s Anonymous), recommends Dr. Cole.

Sometimes eating disordered thoughts make their way back to someone who may have recovered.  When this occurs, the “step-down” program could be taken to allow a patient to reduce stressors and “step-up” their recovery activities for awhile.  Among eating disorder sufferers, relapse is very common and aftercare and a measured “step-down” process can assist in reducing the despair and hopelessness that can oftentimes accompany relapse.

In the majority of cases, eating disorders do not go away on their own or quickly disappear.  After the completion of treatment, the recovery process still is ongoing and may be steady over a length of time, oftentimes with numerous ups and downs with chances of leaving treatment interspersed.  The discovery of a permanent and lasting solution to any eating disorder takes great effort and tireless commitment to the cure by a group of loved ones and caring professionals.  But, you must always believe that recovery is possible and even likely—with the right treatment.