Review
"Using a wealth of clinical examples, and offering a creative array of techniques and strategies, McFarland has put together a practical, hands-on manual for dealing, in a time-effective manner, with clients struggling with eating disorders. This book will be a useful resource for clinicians in the trenches!" --Steven Friedman, Harvard Community Health Plan
"With this book, the eating disorders field has finally matured past describing the problem and developed a solution orientation. Traditionally, bulimic and anorexic clients have been viewed as difficult to help and long-term treatment candidates. McFarland shows there are ways to treat these problems efficiently and effectively.... Having treated eating disorders with traditional pathology-based and long-term approaches for many years, McFarland is a credible advocate of this new, more brief, and managed-care friAndly method. Extremely well-written and readable." --William Hudson O'Hanlon, coauthor, In Search of Solutions and A Brief Guide to Brief Therapy
"Barbara McFarland's book will empower clinicians and clients alike. With a masterful grasp of therapy trAnds, she distills her wisdom in years of treating this difficult problem and describes her own journey to more effective treatment. Clinicians will find a great deal of specific help and potent concepts." --Lynn D. Johnson, director, Brief Therapy Center, Salt Lake City
"In straightforward, clear, and pragmatic language, McFarland presents a model that focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses, on solutions rather than problems, and on hope rather than despair. Her book should be on the shelf of every clinician who works with clients who have eating problems." --Scott D. Miller, Brief Therapy Network
"An encouraging work that offers more realistic hope for the clients and recognizes and builds on their strengths. This book is recommAnded reading for anyone who has an interest in the treatment of eating disorders." --Maren Engel, Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy
From the Inside Flap
Eating disorders, a prevalent health issue especially for women, have long been viewed by most clinicians as particularly challenging to treat and a syndrome that requires extensive long-term therapy. However, given the advent of managed care and health care reform, clinicians are being pressured to become more efficient in their treatment of these clients.In Brief Therapy and Eating Disorders, Barbara McFarland offers practitioners the necessary tools to provide brief, clinically sound eating disorders treatment. Drawing from her own clinical experience as founder of the Eating Disorders Recovery Center, she demonstrates how solution-focused brief therapy, as developed by Steve deShazer, is one of the more efficient approaches in treating eating disorders.Instead of focusing on client pathology and characterological deficits, this approach operates on the assumption that eating disorder clients have the necessary internal resources to create unique solutions to their problems. The author believes that clinicians must begin with the least intrusive treatment interventions and work diligently with clients to determine treatment goals that are salient to them.The author offers clinicians an opportunity to expand their vision not only in terms of their beliefs and attitudes about eating disorder clients but also in terms of their clinical focus. She describes practical, hands-on strategies and interventions designed to guide therapists through each step of the treatment process. Not only does the author present a framework for conducting the first and second sessions, but she also details specific strategies and techniques for working with more clinically challenging cases. Throughout the book, actual case examples and transcripts of interviews are included to illustrate the process.The book concludes with a detailed description of the out-patient group program at the Eating Disorders Recovery Center in Cincinnati, which includes a summary of the solution-focu
