ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Dialectic behavior therapy (DBT) theory and its applications to patients with eating disorders. It demonstrates how specific skills and strategies can be pulled from these therapies to provide an integrative approach. The differences in therapeutic approaches lie in the goals of treatment, with CBT/DBT focusing on making changes to the symptoms while interpersonal psychotherapy targets changes to the system in which a symptom exists. Interpersonal psychotherapy is rooted in a two-person model of therapy, in which the therapist is engaged intimately with the patient so that the patient is able to feel the 'presence and involvement' of the therapist. Drawing on the skills that encompass the DBT emotional regulation modules, work with patients can begin to understand how to identify not only emotions themselves, but also their prompting events and consequences.
