ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to empower family therapists to provide effective treatment. It addresses the question of how best to organise effective treatment services for the young people. The book discusses the Structural Family Therapy model of Salvador Minuchin et al, the Philadelphia group of therapists. It proposes to change the therapy model by integrating aspects of attachment approaches with more traditional structural/systemic approaches. The book focuses on family interaction and parenting, and their relationship to anorexia, provides abundant evidence of the link between family relationships and anorexia. It discusses the emotional life of the family and parental psychological control. The book describes the parental attitudes to eating, weight, appearance and, more generally, to acceptable self-presentation, prompt attention to the control of eating. It presents a set of perspectives on treatment that are quite different from the Maudsley Model and Family-Based Treatment approaches.
