If your teen has an eating disorder—such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating—you may feel helpless, worried, or uncertain about how you can best support them. That’s why you need real, proven-effective strategies you can use right away. Whether used in conjunction with treatment or on its own, this book offers an evidence-based approach you can use now to help your teen make healthy choices and stay well in body and mind.
When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder will empower you to help your teen using a unique, family-based treatment (FBT) approach. With this guide, you’ll learn to respectfully and lovingly oversee your teen’s nutritional rehabilitation, which includes helping to normalize eating behaviors, managing meals, expanding food flexibility, teaching independent and intuitive eating habits, and using coping strategies and recovery skills to prevent relapse.
In addition to helping parents and caregivers, this book is a wonderful resource for mental health professionals, teachers, counselors, and coaches who work with parents of and teens with eating disorders. It clearly outlines the principles of FBT and the process of involving parents collaboratively in treatment.
As a parent, feeding your child is a fundamental act of love—it has been from the start! However, when a child is affected by an eating disorder, parents often lose confidence in performing this basic task. This compassionate guide will help you gain the confidence needed to nurture your teen and help them heal.
Lauren Muhlheim, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and eating disorders specialist. Muhlheim trained at the Rutgers Eating Disorder Clinic, and is certified in family-based treatment (FBT) by the Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders. She is certified as an eating disorder specialist (CEDS) through the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP), and has worked in a variety of settings, including an obesity research center, inpatient hospitals, outpatient clinics, group homes, and in private practice where more than 80 percent of her patients present with eating disorders.
Muhlheim conducts workshops and seminars for parents, treatment professionals, graduate students in psychology, and psychiatry residents approximately six times per year. She has her own website and blog, is the eating disorders expert for www.verywell.com, and is clinical director for the eating disorder information website, Mirror-Mirror Eating Disorder (www.mirror-mirror.org/eatdis.htm). She’s affiliated with a number of eating disorder and psychology organizations, and is very active on social media. She has built a solid professional platform around eating disorder recovery using FBT. Currently, she is director of Eating Disorder Therapy LA, a multidisciplinary, specialized outpatient eating disorder practice in the heart of Los Angeles, CA.
Foreword writer Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh is a writer from Virginia who became an activist for improved eating disorder treatment after the recovery of her teen daughter from anorexia. Her book, Eating with Your Anorexic, is a memoir of her family’s experience. She has written two books on eating disorders, a memoir, and one book of fiction. She has helped found three eating disorder organizations, and currently serves as outreach director for one of them: F.E.A.S.T., the only international organization for parents of eating disorder patients. She is also owner of Circum Mensam LLC, where she is a consultant and educator. She has been an invited speaker for many organizations. Collins is also frequently interviewed by the media, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, BBC News, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, NPR, and the Los Angeles Times.
