About this live event
Date: TBD
The work of professionals who treat clients diagnosed with an eating disorder (ED) and significant other comorbidities such as depression, anxiety, suicidality, or BPD can be complicated. First and foremost, multi-diagnostic ED clients can be ambivalent about treatment and recovery. Professionals are often in the position of having to “sell” the treatment we believe is needed to individuals who often have not been helped by multiple previous interventions. Furthermore, EDs can be life threatening illnesses and professionals may become unclear about priorities when attempting to help a client who has more than one life-threatening condition: e.g., what if my client is self-harming and is medically unstable – which do I deal with first? The work of the ED professional is further complicated by behaviors that can interfere with the treatment delivery. Behaviors such as angry outbursts, failure to complete homework, lying, water-loading, and cancelling sessions are considered therapy-interfering behaviors (TIBs) and can interfere with clients’ abilities to benefit from treatment, remain in treatment, or both. Finally, the professional’s own burn out and frustrations can interfere with treatment, as well.
Mulitdiagnostic Eating Disorder-Dialectical Behavior Therapy (MED-DBT), provides a clear and systematic model for dealing with ambivalent, multiple-problem cases, as well as life-threatening, and therapy-interfering behaviors.
In this one-hour long workshop participants will be exposed to MED-DBT theory and practice. The current presentation will describe how a MED-DBT treatment model can effectively and comprehensively address eating disorder issues and their comorbidities across the DBT targets. Particular attention will be given to how to conceptualize and organize patient behavior in terms of priorities, and how to identify and address therapy-interfering behaviors on the part of the patient and therapist.
