Eating Disorders & DBT
Incorporating DBT for Treating Eating Disorders
Virtual via Zoom
Fee: $35 full members; $135 partial members & nonmembers
Continuing Education Hours: 6.0
Course Description
Patients for whom traditional treatments have not resulted in recovery or remission as well as those who suffer from multiple co-morbid psychological diagnoses tend to be a conceptual and practical treatment conundrum, often leading to therapist burnout and to patient drop out.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), originally designed to treat chronically suicidal patients suffering from borderline personality disorder, is a treatment that has been applied to multi-diagnostic, difficult-to-treat patients such as these with at least some evidence demonstrating it as both efficacious and effective (Ben-Porath, et al, 2020).
The work of professionals who treat clients diagnosed with an eating disorder (ED) and significant other comorbidities such as depression, anxiety, or BPD can be complicated. First and foremost, multi-diagnostic ED clients can be ambivalent about treatment and recovery. Professionals are often in the position of having to “sell” the treatment we believe is needed to individuals who have not been successfully helped often by multiple previous interventions. Next, the treatment itself becomes complicated when the multi-diagnostic ED client suffers from more than one disorder. For example, professionals are left to consider: “Do I address the ED first or the PTSD?”
EDs can be life threatening illnesses and professionals may become unclear about priorities when attempting to help a client who has more than one life-threatening condition: e.g., What if my client is self-harming and is medically unstable – which do I deal with first? The work of the ED professional is further complicated by behaviors that can interfere with the treatment delivery. Behaviors such as angry outbursts, failure to complete homework, lying, water-loading, and cancelling sessions are considered therapy-interfering behaviors (TIBs) and can interfere with clients’ abilities to benefit from treatment, remain in treatment, or both. Finally, the professional’s own burn out and frustrations can interfere with treatment, as well.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a therapy originally designed for chronically suicidal, difficult-to-treat patients, provides a clear and systematic approach for dealing with ambivalence, multiple-problem cases, as well as life-threatening and therapy-interfering behaviors. As a comprehensive and evidence-based treatment, DBT blends acceptance-based strategies with change-based interventions.
In this full-day, advanced workshop, participants will learn how to use DBT theory and practice, how to apply motivation and commitment strategies, how to conceptualize and organize patient behavior in terms of priorities, and how to identify and address therapy-interfering behaviors on the part of the patient and therapist. Using lectures, case examples, small group exercises and role plays, participants will have the opportunity to practice and observe DBT treatment strategies for those diagnosed with an eating disorder.
About the Trainer
Amy Kalasunas, LPCC-S, CCMHC
Amy Kalasunas (she/her), LPCC-S, CCMHC, is a behaviorist with over 20 years of experience working within evidence-based treatment models. She has extensive training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and its sub-specialty area of DBT for Eating Disorders, as well as DBT- Prolonged Exposure, and supervision and consultation team adherence practices.
Kalasunas is a DBT-Linehan Board of Certification Certified Clinician, functions as co-chair of the DBT LBC Publications Committee and serves on the DBT-LBC Communications Committee. A sought-after presenter, she consistently achieves the highest evaluation scores when presenting two- and three-day workshops on the topics of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT and Complex Eating Disorders, and DBT-Prolonged Exposure and Eating Disorders. Amy has also developed and piloted interventions for parents of multi-diagnostic adult children using an adaptation of the SPACE protocol (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) and DBT.
Her clinical work has included developing, implementing, and evaluating program outcomes across the spectrum of clinical milieus, including inpatient psychiatric hospitals, Partial Hospitalization Programs, Intensive Outpatient Programs, community mental health agencies, specialty practice clinics, and private practice offices. Her current clinical practice includes providing comprehensive DBT to adults as well as treating symptoms of PTSD with DBT-PE. She also provides evidence-based interventions to parents of adolescents and young adults who struggle to meet expected milestones.