ABSTRACT
Working with women with eating disorders can be extremely challenging because maladaptive knowledge structures or schemata are acquired early in childhood. Aaron Beck (1976) explained that these schemata are ways of perceiving the world that are made up of attitudes, beliefs, and concepts that individuals use when they interpret their experiences. When some women experience stressful events in childhood, they become vulnerable to making dysfunctional interpretations that lead to emotional disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In addition to maladaptive cognitions, external factors, such as societal pressure, can contribute to the maintenance of these disorders. Therefore, the treatment of eating disorders is complicated and requires much patience of the therapist. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of cognitive behavioral strategies that we have found to be clinically useful. In addition, specic examples for establishing rapport, making appropriate referrals, and engaging the client and her family in the therapeutic process are discussed.
