At an eating disorder clinician holiday party last week, an outreach representative from a venture-owned eating disorder treatment program approached me. As she discussed the changes in her program, she focused on how beautiful the new outpatient facility is, as if a new renovation were the best selling point for comprehensive eating disorder care.
The obvious takeaway is that the monetization of eating disorder treatment has supplanted the need for effective and compassionate treatment.
But my mind drifted instead to an ignored topic in eating disorder care: trauma caused by residential programs and hospital programs.
To be clear, many people receive substantive, effective care at these programs, even the ones backed by financial companies.
Many people, especially young people and adolescents, also have traumatic experiences at treatment programs which cement the power of the eating disorder and layer an unnecessary and entrenched mental health issue which makes recovery much harder. A traumatic treatment experience often leads people to stop seeking care completely. Destroying trust in the treatment process forces patients down a path of a chronic eating disorder and little chance for recovery or even relief.
Sometimes a treatment program won’t be helpful and that’s ok. But no treatment should be traumatic and worsen a patient’s illness. That’s unacceptable.
The next few posts will focus on various ways residential and hospital-based programs are traumatic. I’ll also focus on ideas to limit this horrible and avoidable damage.
The posts will discuss the following ideas: forced treatment stays, treating patients like children, relentless focus on weight in recovery, ensuring programs have adequately trained supervisors and creating a standard for adequate education and experience.
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