Eating Disorders Treatment
Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center is a leader in eating disorder treatment for women and girls with anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders.
Eating disorders describe conditions where a person's preoccupation with food, eating-related behaviors, and weight crowds out major aspects of her life. Timberline Knolls has helped hundreds of women and their families achieve long-term recovery from eating disorders. Eating disorders are serious, chronic health conditions that can affect men and women of all ages. A person can suffer serious health consequences without proper eating disorder treatment.
The staff at Timberline Knolls recognizes that each woman has a unique story, and her own distinctive strengths and challenges. She may be seeking treatment for the first time; or, she may be suffering a relapse following a stay at another eating disorder treatment center. With input from the woman, her loved ones, and our experts, we craft an individualized eating disorder treatment plan for each resident. We don't have a standard eating disorder track; we help each woman develop the skills she will need to experience the joys of lifelong recovery.
Healing for Mind, Body and Spirit
Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center is distinguished by our holistic approach to eating disorder treatment. Our compassionate, experienced treatment staff helps women make real-life changes. Our program's long-term success is recognized by leading outpatient treatment providers, who repeatedly refer their patients to our treatment center. We combine medical excellence with awareness of the realities of eating disorder recovery, and help our residents strengthen five core aspects of the self:
- Physical
- Mental
- Emotional
- Spiritual
- Social
Residential treatment provides women with a supportive and powerful peer group who understand the emotional challenges of recovering from anorexia nervosa, bulimia or binge eating disorders. By living together with continuous therapeutic support, residents learn to practice making healthy decisions when they experience feelings that accompany their eating disorder. A woman will learn to be mindful of feelings like anxiety, fear or shame, and to experience them in ways that won't compromise the joy in her life. Long-term immersion in this recovering community builds a woman's confidence that she can practice recovery skills when she returns to her home, or to another less structured living environment. Like a person in recovery from substance abuse, drug addiction or alcoholism, a woman with an eating disorder can realize the full joy and beauty life has to offer.
Do I need eating disorder treatment?
Learn more about the signs and symptoms of eating disorders.
We Look At All Aspects of a Woman's Health
Our experience has taught us that many women struggle to recover from eating disorders because of other mental health conditions. We refer to these psychiatric conditions or addictions, which may not have been identified or treated successfully in the past, as co-occurring disorders. Many rehab centers don't understand how co-occurring disorders may contribute to the development of an eating disorder. A woman may also develop co-occurring addictions as she attempts to soothe symptoms of her eating disorder or another psychiatric condition.
Given how these conditions can compromise a resident's chances of maintaining recovery, Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center emphasizes early identification of co-occurring disorders. Psychiatric conditions commonly co-existing with anorexia nervosa, bulimia or binge eating disorders 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 (including alcoholism, drug addiction and prescription drug dependency)
Concerned about a specific eating disorder? Learn more about:
What Happens In Treatment And Therapy?
Each woman comes to eating disorder treatment with her own story...
...of overwhelming emotions
...of missed memories and lost opportunities
...of relapses, heartache and pain
...of doubts that recovery is possible for her
We focus on meeting each woman where she is.
We commit to supporting every resident in an uplifting, empowering manner, not through shaming or policing her behavior.
We will do what it takes to help each resident make a real-life difference by serving her and her family with relentless compassion and an unconditional, joyful spirit.
Several members of our eating disorders treatment staff have personal experience overcoming an eating disorder. Our psychiatrists and therapists know that a woman doesn't want to engage in anorexic, bulimic or binge eating behaviors. Eating disorder symptoms are not a sign of personal weakness, but an attempt to cope with complicated emotions caused by a medical disease.
We also understand the ambivalence and fear many women feel about coming to residential treatment. Our staff understands we must earn each woman's trust by showing her that she can maintain recovery with healthier behaviors and thought patterns that draw on her own inherent strength and ability to take in support from others.
That's why we take such an integrated, individualized approach to eating disorder treatment by helping girls and women:
- Identify emotional triggers for eating disorder 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 the potential to make healthy choices, one day at a time, that will lead to life-long recovery
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How Do We Address Feelings About Eating and Food?
Many women come to residential treatment for eating disorders with great apprehension about meals.
We believe that healthy changes in eating behavior begin with listening and empathy. Timberline Knolls' nutritional philosophy is to support women and recognize their efforts to heal, not to police, judge or shame them for eating disorder symptoms.
Our nutrition and eating disorder treatment staff helps residents feel secure in expressing the emotions triggered by food and eating. Women with anorexia nervosa, bulimia or a binge eating disorder are supported during meals by clinical staff that is trained to help them verbalize these feelings of fear, sadness, anger or shame. Describing her emotions among a supportive peer group helps a woman realize that she is not alone with her illness, or in her struggle to experience feelings in a healthy manner.
Successful eating disorder treatment must prepare residents to deal with a lifetime of unpredictable circumstances and emotions. Experiential activities like shopping and cooking helps residents practice eating disorder recovery skills with direct support from eating disorder specialists, who help them prepare for situations they'll face in recovery.
Timberline Knolls eating disorder treatment staff also equips a woman's family to engage in recovery as a family during and after her residential treatment. Nutrition strategies and meal preparation techniques are discussed during weekly family conferences over the phone. Dieticians and eating disorders specialists conduct hands-on training for families during on-campus visits. When clinically useful, we may also encourage the family to practice these skills together during off-campus meals.
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How Do We Identify The Root Causes of Eating Disorders?
Rigorous Pre-admission Screening
Assessment of a woman's treatment needs begins in our admissions review. Licensed admissions counselors will ask both the woman and her family about her eating disorder symptoms, issues with friends and family, and challenges in school or work. With her permission, we will seek input from previous eating disorder treatment providers, and her school, when applicable. This diligent approach assures that a woman's treatment team has all relevant information about her medical and psychiatric history, past treatment progress, and key obstacles to recovery from her eating disorder.
Comprehensive Intake Assessment
Once a woman is admitted to Timberline Knolls, she receives a thorough evaluation by members of our multi-disciplinary eating disorder treatment team:
- Primary therapist
- Family therapist
- Psychiatrist (MD)
- Internal medicine physician (MD)
- Registered dietician (RD)
- Eating disorders specialist
Each treatment team member's findings are reviewed with our entire clinical staff, including other therapists and psychiatrists. As a result, our full knowledge about effective treatment for anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders is integrated into each woman's treatment plan.
Effective Information Sharing
Close collaboration among the medical, clinical and support staff is one of the distinguishing benefits of a leading residential treatment center like Timberline Knolls. Successful eating disorder treatment also requires communication among the Timberline Knolls treatment staff and the resident, her loved ones, and her home treatment providers. Our reputation for fostering a collaborative partnership among these parties is one of the reasons leading outpatient eating disorder treatment specialists and inpatient hospitals recommend Timberline Knolls to patients who need more intensive medical and clinical support.
The Timberline Knolls team is here to help you.
Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center accepts women (ages 12 and up) for admission 7 days per week.
Learn why leading eating disorder professionals encourage their patients to choose Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center.
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Do You Need A Residential Eating Disorder Treatment Center?
Are you uncertain about what type of eating disorder treatment makes sense for you or your loved one?
Our licensed admissions counselors are trained to help women and families evaluate their needs. Before admitting a woman, an admissions counselor will work closely with the woman, her loved ones and outpatient treatment providers to assure that her eating disorder treatment needs cannot be met by a lower level of care.
The Timberline Knolls team is here to help you.
Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center accepts women (ages 12 and up) for admission 7 days per week.
Learn more about the different types of treatment for eating disorders.
