I had the good fortune to work at another eating disorder treatment program in the early 1990s. I learned a lot about eating disorders, and I saw first hand what I liked and didn’t like about treatment! Later, when I was in private practice, my clients included many young women who were athletes at the University of Arizona. I couldn’t help noticing how many of them went into treatment over the summer only to relapse once they returned to school in the fall.
At that time I was working on my PhD at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco. While studying Clinical Behavioral Medicine, I was introduced to concept of stress-related illness. It didn’t take long to recognize that many illnesses — including eating disorders — were the result of chronic stress. I knew then that an effective eating disorder treatment program would have to offer much more than traditional psychotherapy.
