ABSTRACT
Parent-Based Prevention directly targets one of the main concerns of parents with eating disorders: that their own cognitions and behaviors related to eating, body image, and co-occurring symptoms (such as parental anxiety, mood, and trauma symptoms) will impact upon their children. In Phase Two of the program, parents are encouraged to reflect on the links between their eating disorder and their parenting practices. Since every family has an individual organization that interweaves the unique characteristics of family members and the family structure, the therapist is expected to adapt the intervention so that it meets the needs of the specific family at hand. Further, many parents have not shared these worries with anyone prior to their participation in the program. In fact, for many of them parenting is a catalyst for seeking treatment. Therefore, Parent-Based Prevention provides a flexible setting, where both partners meet together with the therapist, and the father or the mother with the eating disorder history holds separate individual meetings with the therapist. In these sessions, parents can reflect on their parental schemas, the child-rearing experiences they had in regard to feeding and eating, and how their eating disorder might model their parenting practices.
