We Take a Holistic Look at Bulimia Treatment
A woman with a long history of bulimia nervosa often comes to a treatment center believing that her hope is lost. Or she may believe that she isn't capable of feeling good about herself, or confident in her future. Often, her behaviors with food and eating are tightly intertwined with feelings of anxiety, sadness, fear, anger, shame and other complicated emotions. Although a woman with bulimia frequently excels academically or professionally, she can't understand why she continues to binge and purge despite negative physical, emotional, social and/or spiritual consequences.
While many bulimia treatment centers focus exclusively on treating a woman's eating disorder, our team takes a step back and looks at the whole person. That's because some of us have suffered with bulimia nervosa ourselves, and struggled to achieve recovery through multiple rehab programs.
Through our experience, we've learned that many women diagnosed with bulimia nervosa also suffer from co-occurring psychiatric or addictive disorders. These conditions may either contribute to the cause of bulimia, or they may develop as a woman with bulimia attempts to cope with or manage the symptoms of her eating disorder.
Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center places more emphasis up front on understanding a woman's entire history of addictive and/or compulsive behavior, given the critical impact these co-occurring conditions will have on treatment and recovery from bulimia. Psychiatric conditions commonly co-existing with bulimia nervosa may include:
- depression
- bipolar disorder
- panic and anxiety disorders
- post-traumatic stress disorder
- obsessive compulsive personality disorder (which is different from OCD)
- borderline personality disorder
- sleep disorders
- substance abuse disorders
Why Is Our Bulimia Treatment Program Successful?
Effective approaches to eating disorder treatment and recovery consider all available information about a resident, and leverage the experience of our entire staff to customize each woman's treatment for bulimia nervosa. This level of collaboration is one of the distinctive benefits of bulimia treatment at a leading rehab center like Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center. It's also one of the reasons why so many leading outpatient eating disorder specialists refer to us their patients who need more intensive bulimia treatment, or who have struggled to sustain recovery in an outpatient setting.
Before Admission
Assessment of a woman's treatment needs begins early on in our admissions review process. We ask both the woman and her family to provide information about her bulimia symptoms, issues with friends and family, and challenges in school or work. We also seek her permission to communicate with previous eating disorder treatment providers to gather additional information about medical history, psychiatric history, past eating disorder treatment progress, and stumbling blocks to achieving or maintaining recovery from bulimia.
Thorough Intake Assessment
Once she is admitted, each woman undergoes a comprehensive medical and psychiatric assessment. She is then assigned an eating disorder treatment team with several members whom she will meet individually after she settles in on campus:
- Primary therapist
- Family therapist
- Psychiatrist (MD)
- Internal medicine physician (MD)
- Registered dietician (RD)
- Eating disorders specialist
Each treatment team member provides an assessment within the woman's first days at Timberline Knolls. The findings are integrated and reviewed with our entire clinical staff, including other therapists and psychiatrists. As a result, our full knowledge about effective bulimia treatment is integrated into each woman's treatment plan.
Taking Ownership of Treatment
We believe it is critical for each woman to take ownership of her treatment and recovery from the outset. Once her treatment plan is formulated, our team's recommendations are shared with the woman in her first care conference, which will include her primary therapist, family therapist, psychiatrist, discharge planner, nursing staff and lodge staff. This cooperative approach gives her input into the goals for her treatment and allows her to choose several elective elements of her program. She will be asked to sign off on her treatment objectives and the progression of her treatment plan for both bulimia nervosa and any other co-occurring psychiatric or addictive disorders. This conference also sets stage for ongoing collaboration between the woman and her treatment team throughout her stay in residential treatment.
Looking Forward to Recovery
Following the initial care conference, the treatment team will meet weekly throughout the resident's stay, and consult each other informally to monitor her progress and to make sure her recovery needs are being fully supported. If new symptoms appear, a woman may also undergo additional psychological testing or medical evaluation to insure her bulimia treatment considers all relevant aspects of her health.
Additionally, women with other medical symptoms or complications from bulimia may be referred to consulting healthcare providers such as a dentist, cardiologist, gynecologist, orthopedic surgeon, or gastroenterologist.
Our Staff is Committed to Meeting You Where You Are
Every woman who commits to bulimia treatment brings her own story of challenges, emotions, and heartache. We focus on meeting each woman where she is, and supporting her in an uplifting, empowering manner, not through shaming or policing her behavior.
Several members of our bulimia treatment staff have personal experience overcoming bulimia nervosa. Our psychiatrists and therapists know that a woman doesn't want to engage in bulimic behaviors, but that symptoms are an attempt to cope with complicated emotions. We also understand the complex fears and obstacles that come with committing to bulimia treatment and seeking a new path with different behaviors, thinking patterns, and a different way of living.
That's why we take such an integrated, individualized approach to bulimia treatment by helping girls and women:
- Identify emotional triggers for bulimia symptoms, which may have other underlying causes that have not been properly identified or addressed
- Create awareness of healthy ways to respond to stress, fear, anger, sadness or shame
- Avoid destructive "either/or" thought patterns that add to the sense of hopelessness and unmanageability that many women experience in their disease
- Develop confidence in her potential to make healthy choices one day at a time that will lead to life-long recovery
We don't make assumptions about a resident's experience and needs based on her age, weight, or patterns of bulimic symptoms. Residents receive coaching and reinforcement that is individualized to help them grow in key areas of interpersonal skills, distress tolerance and management, reality acceptance skills, and emotional regulation skills.
What Will You Experience During Bulimia Nervosa Treatment?
A woman's experience at Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center may differ significantly from other rehab facilities or treatment programs she has attended. That is by design.
Comprehensive, Integrated Treatment and Recovery
There is no such thing as a miracle cure for bulimia nervosa.
Every woman who seeks recovery from bulimia must develop tools she can trust to help her healthfully experience emotions that used to trigger binges and purges. We work with our residents to help them recognize their feelings and identify the conscious choices they make throughout their day. Through ongoing, supportive reinforcement women learn to trust the tools we give them in situations where they would have previously turned to their bulimia. As they gain confidence in their ability to make positive, healthy choices, they experience improved self-esteem and body acceptance, reduced stress and anxiety, healing of trauma, and increased self-awareness. They begin to lose the sense of loneliness and isolation they experienced so much of in the disease. The come to know the healing power of belonging and healing in a recovery community.
Comprehensive and individualized eating disorder treatment plans use approaches proven to help women learn to healthfully experience their emotions and develop the tools to recover from bulimia. Specific examples include:
- one-on-one therapy sessions
- expressive and experiential therapy
- education about disease processes and recovery
- meal support and regular consultation with dietary staff
- group sessions to teach and practice behavior modification and emotion management
- family therapy (including family participation)
- twelve-step facilitation
- onsite and offsite twelve-step meetings
- weekly psychiatric consultation
- trauma awareness and recovery groups
- educational services for school-age women
Expressive Therapy Provides a Healthy Outlet for Emotions
Expressive therapy has been clinically proven to promote healing and recovery. It also provides a needed creative outlet for women during bulimia treatment, and after they return to their home environment. Our expressive therapy program includes a variety of outlets a woman can select based on her personal interests:
- art therapy in a historical art studio that supports painting, sculpture and other medias
- equine assisted psychotherapy
- dance/movement therapy
- empowerment group (experiential trauma recovery)
- self-defense in our on-site fitness facility
- outdoor recreation such as volleyball, basketball, soccer, badminton or gardening on our 43 acre campus
A Realistic, Supportive Approach to Nutrition
Many women and girls come to residential treatment for bulimia with great apprehension about meals. We believe that healthy changes in eating behavior begin with listening and empathy, not with policing or judgment.
Our nutrition and eating disorder treatment staff focuses on creating an environment where a woman can feel safe expressing the emotions that arise in the context of food and eating. Learning to verbalize her feelings, a woman will start to realize that she is not alone with her illness, or in her struggle to cope with her fear, sadness, anger and shame. Our nutritional philosophy focuses on supporting women as they seek this awareness and helping them develop confidence in their ability to make healthy choices about food with support. Experiential activities like shopping and cooking give residents the chance to practice skills needed to overcome bulimia in the real world while still surrounded by eating disorder treatment professionals who understand the challenges of recovery.
We recognize that successful bulimia treatment must also equip a woman's family to engage in the process of recovery during and after her stay at a bulimia treatment center. Nutrition and meal preparation approaches are part of weekly family conferences over the phone, as well as hands on sessions with our eating disorder specialists and dieticians during on-campus visits. When clinically useful, we may also encourage the family to practice these skills together during a during off-campus meals.
To learn more about bulimia treatment and recovery at Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center, call one of our experienced admissions counselors today at 877.257.9612. We accept women and girls (ages 12 and up) for admission seven days a week.
