Integrated Treatment of Eating Disorders: Beyond the Body Betrayed

Kathryn J. Zerbe

Hear Dr. Zerbe's interview from the International Academy of Eating Disorders Conference

Praise for Integrated Treatment of Eating Disorders

”THE BEST NEW BOOK FOR CLINICIANS we’ve seen in years....It is MUST READING for therapists. Beautifully written, Zerbe explains how to successfully treat patients from the initial appointment through termination. She weaves together comprehensive pearls of evidence-based information with cases, compassion, art and history, and holistic approaches.... an invaluable resource for all mental health practitioners”
—Bulimia.com

“Grounded in a tremendous depth and breadth of scholarship and extensive clinical experience, this book is perhaps the field’s most eloquent synthesis of contemporary clinical perspectives on eating disorders to date. Written with heartfelt caring and poetic perceptiveness, this is a book I will return to often, and one that I will eagerly recommend to students, trainees, colleagues, patients, and their families.”
—Eating Disorders Review

“An experienced and expert clinician-scholar, Dr. Zerbe offers a thoughtful discussion and synthesis of diverse therapeutic approaches that will help clinicians transcend the limits of any one particular method as they navigate treatment of these complex and multifaceted illnesses.”
—Anne Becker, MD, PhD, ScM; Director, Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program

“Kathryn Zerbe has done it again! This is perhaps the most comprehensive book in the field of eating disorders ever to be attempted and successfully completed. The scope is astonishing—its breadth equal only to its depth and attention to detail.”
—Adrienne Ressler, MA, LMSW, National Training Director, The Renfrew Center Foundation

“With a compassionate heart and an integrative mind, Zerbe captures the practical essence of the most complex interventions and distills them into accessible, user-friendly applications, making us more meaningfully and effectively engaged in our patients’ growth.”
—Beth McGilley, PhD, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Kansas Medical School

“Reading Integrated Treatment of Eating Disorders, by Kathryn Zerbe, is like listening to a symphony written by a master composer at the height of his or her powers…There are numerous practical sections on initial assessment, patient education, and working with a multidisciplinary team…concise and illuminating clinical examples and many helpful tables in each chapter…an extensive reference section and helpful index”
—Russell Marx, Eating Disorders Review

Overview—Contents—Excerpt

Given the real challenges most clinicians find in treating eating disorders, it is little wonder that most struggle to know what it will take to help a particular patient. Providing a fully “integrated treatment approach” is a fine moniker, but it is always easier to conceptualize or study a subject in the abstract than to put the recommendations into practice in the here and now. In this book, Kathryn Zerbe, an acknowledged expert in this field, tackles the complex issue of eating disorders to present readers with a comprehensive yet hands-on book that answers these essential questions: How can I apply the insights from new research and years of accumulated clinical wisdom to the person sitting right in front of me today? Will it be enough? Is it possible to help her change direction after years of struggle? Is it possible to help him thrive? Will she survive?

The book is divided into three main sections to aid the clinician in formulating and carrying out an integrated treatment plan. The first section describes what transpires during the opening, middle, and termination phases of treatment. This road map helps clinicians gain a sense of where they are and where they might be going next, and provides different strategies for thinking about frequently asked questions such as, “How can I help my patient with this particular area of concern?” and “How might I translate this particular theory or technique into my own setting in a way that is user-friendly?”

The second section of the book addresses treatment and recovery through the lens of the developmental life cycle. In each chapter, the biological, cultural, and psychological bedrocks pertinent to the developmental phase under discussion is reviewed with particular application to the clinical situation.

The final section of the book addresses some of the “special problems” clinicians face when treating eating disorder patients. The patient’s sexuality often goes unaddressed even though it is a ubiquitous concern. Transference reactions and the inevitable countertransference responses that arise during treatment are also discussed.

Contents

Part I: The Stages of Treatment of Eating Disorders
1. The Opening Phase
2. The Middle Phase
3. Termination

Part II: Treatment of EatingDisorders over the Life-Cycle
4. Adolescence
5. Adulthood
6. Middle and Later Life

Part III: Special Issues in the Treatment of Eating Disorders
7. Sexuality
8. Managing Transference and Countertransference
9. Assessing Outcome and Resiliency

Afterword

Appendix A: Sample Therapeutic Contract

Appendix B: Annotated Bibliography for Patients

Excerpt

From Integrated Treatment of Eating Disorders:

If recovery from serious eating disorders did not pose formidable challenges for patients and clinicians alike, there would be little need for a pragmatic text on integrated treatment. Despite remarkable advances in the past quarter century in understanding the complex causes of eating disorders and the diverse patient populations afflicted with full-blown and subclinical symptoms, only a sizeable minority achieve stable remission over time. Moreover, even when control of the manifest symptoms occurs, the individual patient’s overall sense of wellbeing and quality of life is often impaired. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness and cause significant medical and psychological morbidities in patients who do not succumb. How can clinicians and those in our care maintain a sense of hopefulness and conviction that life can be better in the face of such sobering facts? Is it possible to bring together insights derived from contemporary research and decades of accumulated clinical wisdom to help bring our patients to a higher level of functioning in and satisfaction with their lives and to greater mastery over their symptoms?

[…] I have tried to write the kind of book that can be of practical help to beginning and experienced therapists of different professional disciplines and theoretical persuasions who are treating a person with an eating disorder. I also hope to reach out to some patients and their family members who wish to learn more about the many facets of contemporary treatment to insure they are getting what they need to get better and to have an improved quality of life. I include numerous clinical examples to illustrate how psychotherapeutic principles and insights derived from biological, cultural, and psychological studies can be applied in session to help the patient get to the roots of their difficulties and begin to master them.

About the Author

Kathryn J. Zerbe, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University, and the author of the landmark eating disorder text, The Body Betrayed. She lectures nationally and internationally on issues pertaining to women’s mental health and practices psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Portland.

ISBN 10: 0-393-70442-4
ISBN 13: 978-0-393-70442-6
2008 / 280 pages / hardcover