ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the interventions during Phase Three of Parent-Based Prevention are detailed. An overarching goal of Phase Three is augmenting parents’ learning from the behavioral experiments they tested at home, i.e., generalizing the effects of the intervention across settings. Since Parent-Based Prevention aims to support parents with eating disorder histories in developing healthy eating habits, positive body image, and better relationships within the family, participation in the program can help the parents not only become more educated about the potential risks to their children, but enhance spousal communication and mutual support. Discussions in Phase Three, therefore, are oriented toward facilitating and evaluating changes in parental and child functioning beyond the sphere of feeding and eating. The therapist encourages a collaborative review of the parents’ attempts in fostering healthy feeding and eating practices at home, through which the therapist and the parents identify effective and ineffective parental behaviors. The explicit changes the parents report, and their view of these changes, direct the therapist’s interventions in this session. Using direct and circular questioning to learn about the effects of the parents’ attempts to adapt their behaviors, the therapist facilitates improved spousal communication skills and support.
