Individual Treatment of Adolescent Eating Disorders
For Adolescent-focused individual therapy (AFT), is a psychodynamically informed individual psychotherapy focusing on enhancing autonomy, self-efficacy, individuation, and assertiveness while also including collateral parent meetings to support individual treatment. FBT is superior to AFT for adolescent AN - please refer to the section Family Therapy to find out more about FBT. Although Family Based Treatment (Maudsley Method) has more evidence supporting it at present, AFT remains an important alternative treatment for families that would prefer a largely individual treatment.
Adolescent-focused therapy posits that individuals with AN manifest ego deficits and confuse self-control with biological needs. Young people learn to identify and define their emotions and, later, to tolerate affective states rather than numbing themselves with starvation or binge eating and purging behaviours. In phase 1, the therapist establishes rapport, assesses motivation, and formulates the patient’s psychological concerns. The therapist actively encourages the patient to stop dieting, to gain weight by setting weight goals, normalising eating behaviours and emphasizing the need to change unhelpful behaviors. The importance of weight gain is discussed and actively encouraged throughout treatment until the patient is weight restored. The therapist supports the young person to reflect upon behavior, emotions, and motives and to help the young person distinguish emotional states from bodily needs and asks the young person to accept responsibility for food-related issues as opposed to relinquishing authority to others (eg, parents). Phase 2 focuses on encouraging separation and individuation and increasing the ability to tolerate negative affect. Phase 3 focuses on termination.
Adolescent-focused therapy sessions are 50 minute weekly sessions held over a year of treatment. Collateral meetings are held with parents alone to support parental functioning, advocate for the patient’s developmental needs, and update parents on progress. Up to eight sessions may used for this purpose. For more information follow this link: http://anorexiafamily.com/aft-adolescent-focused-therapy-anorexia-afp-an/
Adolescent-focused therapy posits that individuals with AN manifest ego deficits and confuse self-control with biological needs. Young people learn to identify and define their emotions and, later, to tolerate affective states rather than numbing themselves with starvation or binge eating and purging behaviours. In phase 1, the therapist establishes rapport, assesses motivation, and formulates the patient’s psychological concerns. The therapist actively encourages the patient to stop dieting, to gain weight by setting weight goals, normalising eating behaviours and emphasizing the need to change unhelpful behaviors. The importance of weight gain is discussed and actively encouraged throughout treatment until the patient is weight restored. The therapist supports the young person to reflect upon behavior, emotions, and motives and to help the young person distinguish emotional states from bodily needs and asks the young person to accept responsibility for food-related issues as opposed to relinquishing authority to others (eg, parents). Phase 2 focuses on encouraging separation and individuation and increasing the ability to tolerate negative affect. Phase 3 focuses on termination.
Adolescent-focused therapy sessions are 50 minute weekly sessions held over a year of treatment. Collateral meetings are held with parents alone to support parental functioning, advocate for the patient’s developmental needs, and update parents on progress. Up to eight sessions may used for this purpose. For more information follow this link: http://anorexiafamily.com/aft-adolescent-focused-therapy-anorexia-afp-an/
