Parent-Focused Psychotherapy for the Preventive Management of Chronicity in Anorexia Nervosa: A Case Series

María García-Anaya, Alejandro Caballero-Romo and Laura González-Macías
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María García-Anaya: Clinical Research Division, National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City 14370, Mexico
Alejandro Caballero-Romo: Eating Disorders Clinic at Clinical Services Division, National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City 14370, Mexico
Laura González-Macías: Eating Disorders Clinic at Clinical Services Division, National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City 14370, Mexico

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: Background: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a complex eating disorder where involvement of family plays a central role in first line treatment in adolescents, but which is not so for adults where poor response to treatment is frequent. Given the reluctance of some patients to receive treatment, we set out to explore the hypothesis that certain family dynamics may be involved in the maintenance of the disorder. Methods: We aimed to understand what is underlying in the cases of patients who present clinical improvement with their parents, but not the ones who received a parent-focused psychotherapeutic intervention. We conducted a mixed methods study. On the one hand we performed a case series of 14 patients who dropped out of treatment while their parents actively attended the intervention, and on the other hand, we followed the evolution of the parents of those patients reluctant to continue treatment, through non-participant observation. Results: We present preliminary evidence where we found the parent-focused psychotherapeutic intervention was able to elicit a reflective function of the parents. We also observed that the intervention modified certain family dynamics that could be related to maintaining factors of the disorder. In patients, we found that in parallel to the assistance of their parents to psychotherapeutic treatment, and even when they were receiving no intervention, they showed significant clinical improvement of symptomatology and global functioning; we observed 9 of 14 of them who voluntarily decided to return to pharmacological treatment. Conclusions: This parent-focused intervention elicited changes in reflective functioning of participant parents; the intervention produced favorable changes in family dynamics, which we believe is probably related to improvement of global functioning, symptomatology, and insight of patients.

Keywords: anorexia nervosa; family psychotherapy; chronicity; reflective functioning; vicarious experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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