ABSTRACT
The Psychosomatic Family Model was focused on contemporaneous transaction patterns in the family rather than on their impact on child development. The families of the patients with anorexia were seen as tending towards a preoccupation with somatic concerns, and often specifically with preoccupations about food and diet, table manners and food fads, hence the patient's "choice" of anorexia as a symptom. The parents would then need to be helped to achieve more direct and effective conflict resolution. Parents could be helped to think about the stresses that may have contributed to the development of the problem. The parents and patient could then be encouraged to find other ways of coping with these stresses. In the final phase of treatment, Sargent et al recommended that the therapist carry on both individual therapy for the patient and marital therapy for the parents while also keeping the whole family as a group in mind.
