Eating disorders have long been considered to be chronic and intractable mental illnesses that are difficult to treat. However, the introduction of Family-Based Therapy (FBT) for anorexia and bulimia nervosa has changed the way we think about the treatment of these disorders.

Family Based Treatment, with origins in Family Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa, developed at the Maudsley Hospital, is effective with children and adolescents, who have been ill for less than three years and are under age 18, with between 50-70% of patients achieving recovery after a year of treatment. FBT works to empower parents to manage their child’s eating disorder through a firm, compassionate focus on renourishment efforts.

The treatment emphasizes the importance of parental efforts at renourishment, then the transition of control back to the adolescent. The importance of a return to normal development, both in eating and in the child or adolescent’s daily living, is essential for preventing relapse and rounds out the end of treatment. Endorsed by the NICE guidelines as the first line of treatment for child and adolescent eating disorders.