ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the session summarizing the initial phase of Parent-Based Prevention. In a focused intervention program such as Parent-Based Prevention, the therapist should maintain a flexible consultative stance – identifying the prominent challenges for the family, but at the same time remaining respectful of the parents’ insights, preferences, and existing coping strategies. To guide the parents in their application of the program to their family’s unique case, the therapist helps them review the observations and insights gathered in the two meetings thus far, and formulate and refine the focus of this preventive intervention to reduce the risk of eating disorders in the children of parents affected by the illness. In sessions 1 and 2, the therapist and the parents developed insights regarding the transactions between family members concerning food and eating, and the broader challenges for children’s healthy development. In session 3, the therapist coaches the parents in tailoring the goals of the intervention and spearheading the changes in their family’s attitudes, behaviors, and transactions. These are derived from their improved understanding of the effects of the parental eating disorder on child feeding and eating and on their general family structure.
