The Risks and Benefits is Increased Communication for Eating Disorder Recovery

The relentless thought process of an eating disorder dominates the mind of someone who is sick all day and night. Recovery aims to replace these thoughts with healthier thoughts about eating a normal mean plan and overall health and well-being.

However, one or two sessions per week is much less powerful than the endless stream of eating disorder thoughts that lives with someone day and night. Contact in between sessions helps balance the playing field in the recovery process.

Technology has opened up many new ways for therapists and nutritionists to contact a patient during the week. Email, texts and various recovery apps allow for regular check-ins that can stem the tide of eating disorder thoughts and allow treatment to have a more pervasive effect blocking worsening symptoms.

The regular contact through the week goes against the grain of all mental health treatment. With consistent, daily contact—a mainstay of eating disorder recovery—the therapeutic relationship can blend into what also feels like a personal relationship. The clear boundaries imposed by regular time slots and contact only in the office are much less defined with all forms of messaging.

Many patients with eating disorders have some confusion around boundaries and relationships. Sometimes this issue stems from complicated family relationships, and for others it is due to the lack of experience of social contact due to the isolation caused by the illness.

The inherent confusion around the therapeutic relationship, an essential component of successful treatment, can easily be misinterpreted by clinicians and laypeople unfamiliar with eating disorders treatment as inappropriate.

Eating disorder clinicians are employing other means to try to protect the privacy and treatment from those who might jump to conclusions that the therapeutic relationship crosses boundaries. HIPAA summaries in the email signature, encrypted text and email apps or formulaic recovery apps are increasingly used in therapy. However, some clinicians are even shying away from communication in between sessions to avoid any confusion, even if it harms recovery.

If eating disorder treatment fit into the traditional therapy approach, there would be no need for alternate forms of care. Instead, standard approaches fail miserably.

For many reasons discussed in this blog over the years, the therapeutic relationship is the cornerstone for eating disorder recovery.

Even if that relationship is sometimes confusing and complicated, no treatment works without fully engaging with the patient to pull her out of the clutches of the eating disorder. Hopefully, education about the necessary components of eating disorder treatment will allow for more acceptance of this form of therapy.