Here's How Therapists Should Deal With Eating Disorder Patients Whether you are an eating disorder therapist, a registered dietitian, eating disorder psychiatrist or a physician, it’s never that easy to deal with the behaviour of eating disorder patients. People who suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, night eating syndrome and purging disorder always behave in a weird manner. They are hardly ready to accept the fact that they have a problem, which is why therapists, eating disorder psychiatrists and physicians often find it difficult to offer right solutions to them. Eating disorders are those mental illnesses in which patients are often seen with following abnormal eating patterns, especially because they are always scared of gaining weight. If a person has an eating disorder, they either consume excessive food frequently or eat less than the requirement of their body. Eating disorders have very harmful effects on the patients, and therefore, it becomes imperative for their family members and friends to ask them to seek the right treatment for recovering from their mental illnesses.
When it comes to eating disorder treatment, different approaches are adopted by the therapists to treat the patients appropriately. In order to treat eating disorder patients' different forms of psychotherapy are practised by the therapists during the therapy sessions such as dialectical behavioural therapy, cognitive therapy, and family-based therapy, etc. Read on to figure out how therapists should handle patients with an eating disorder so that they can recover from their problems quickly.
Therapists Should Tactfully Deal With Patients’ Irrational Behaviour One of the most difficult problems that are faced by eating disorder therapists throughout the world while dealing with their patients is that they are never ready to behave in a rational way. When eating disorder patients fail to cooperate with the therapist, it becomes difficult for them to recover from their illness fast. Even though if the therapist give them certain advice they are hardly ready to follow that because they do not find anything wrong with them. A lot of eating disorder patients start hating themselves because they feel that they do not look good. In such cases, therapists should approach the people with an eating disorder in a very different and polite manner.
Convince The Patients That They Have A Problem The first and most important way of working towards the recovery of eating disorder patients is that you need to convince them they have a serious problem but in such a way that they do not hurt themselves. Once people suffering from eating disorder understand that they have a serious problem, they will surely start cooperating with you when it comes to treating the problem.
You Must Show Your Concern Towards The Patients Everyone likes it when you show true concern towards their health and well-being and same applies to the patients of eating disorder as well. Considering the fact that eating disorder patients are extremely sensitive and if they find that you truly care about their health they will start following your advice and suggestions.
Try To Understand Them By Asking Friendly Questions Make sure that whenever you are approached by a patient with an eating disorder, you behave in a friendly way with them. Nothing can prove to be more helpful than behaving in a friendly way with the patients because that’s the only way to make them feel comfortable. No matter what you want to know about them, make sure that you ask friendly yet straight forward questions.
To Get A Clear Picture Of The Problem Ask Questions About Foods If you want to understand the problem in a better way, try to get their opinion about different foods. In other words, try to identify their relationship with different types of foods. You may ask questions like what are your favourite foods, and why is that you restrict yourself from consuming certain foods. Once they talk about their favourite foods, you will be able to figure out why is that they prefer eating them. In addition to that, you will also understand why is that they hate eating certain types of food, and perhaps that’s is when you can give them a logical answer to their problem, which can help in the recovery process.
Try To Figure Out Their Attitude Towards Their Weight Eating disorder patients often feel shy when it comes to sharing their true opinion about their weight and appearance. However, if you behave in a friendly way, they may reveal everything clearly to you. It simply indicates that, if they feel you honestly care for them, they will disclose all their fears to you, which will help you in dealing with their emotions (fears) in a more effective manner. Last but not the least, the therapists should try to convince the people with the eating disorder that they look good the way they are, and that they should stop dieting because it is harmful to their health.
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