I visited the Flagstaff Guidance Center and got a full tour. Though they don't typically treat eating disorders, often times patients with schizophrenia or psychosis will often struggle with food issues as well. This is a short term rehab center guided to stabilize patients enough to send them to out-patient therapy so they can continue meeting with doctors but live on their own. Attached is a picture of one of the rooms in the guidance center that I took, the beds are bolted down and usually the rooms don't have curtains because patients tear them down out of anger. The center was pretty interesting and all the staff were really kind. This however, is not a place I would go to if I wanted help for an eating disorder. The mood was very dreary and it looked like what I would imagine a mental institution to look like: cold and gloomy. The nurse that took me through the center mentioned that often times people that come to inpatient therapy come back after a few weeks because they still aren't stable enough to live on their own.
I spoke to 2 psychologists this week, Ron Paul at Inner Journey Counseling and Andy Hogg.
My conversation with Mr. Paul went as so:
1. Do you treat eating disorders? Answer: yes.
2. What methods do you use for treatment? Answer: I treat eating disorders with two steps; first I treat it as a trauma because often eating disorders aren't about losing weight but rather some traumatic experience in the past. After that I use EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) which is a psychotherapeutic approach guided to treat trauma, and hypnosis to release any built up events.
I asked the psychologist about CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and he said that while he has had success doing that, he has found that treating eating disorders like trauma has a better outcome.
3. Have you found there to be a high relapse rate? Answer: I have found that when I get patients coming out of inpatient therapy there is a high relapse rate but in my own practice I have seen little to none.
4. What is the effectiveness in your treatment? Answer: Trauma lives in a different part of our brain so treating that first makes the methods above more effective.
My conversation with Dr. Hogg wet as so:
1. Do you treat eating disorders? Answer: Rarely, but yes.
2. What methods do you use for treatment? Answer: It's a multi-step process but I start with educating the patient about their eating disorder. Next we find a mechanism to monitor weight so the patient doesn't fall too low or lose sanity in not knowing how much they weigh. Finally we identify the problem as it usually isn't about food. I have found that often simply talking it out is effective.
3. Have you found there to be a high relapse rate? Answer: Compulsive behaviors and addiction usually have higher relapse rates and since eating disorders are both, they take several years to overcome.
4. Have you found your treatment to be effective? Answer: In order for any treatment to be effective, a patient must come to terms with the disorder.
The conversations were very interesting and ultimately they found the same thing: eating disorders are addictive and should be treated as trauma.
I couldn't meet with NAU Professor Dr. Busath because we both had conflicting schedules, however we have another meeting scheduled for 2 weeks from now.
I plan to tour an eating disorder clinic in Phoenix on Thursday, however I will likely have to act as an interested family member to get a tour.
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