Eating Disorder Treatments

I’ve found that people are sometimes curious about what treatment is like. Today I’ll post about the structure of the treatment program that I was in. Tomorrow I’ll start posting about my personal experience and thoughts about it. That’s going to be a multi-day adventure because I would like to detail what it is like from my perspective.

There are 5 different levels of care for eating disorders. USUALLY, a patient will go into a program at the level of treatment that is necessary for their level of illness. There are always exceptions and I was one of them. The 5 levels of care from most severe to least are:

Inpatient Residential Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) Outpatient

Generally, most patients will enter into treatment at one level and “graduate/step” down through the lower levels until they are able to function at the outpatient level. That was not the case with me. I was started at the IOP level due to some personal constraints and I will explain that more in tomorrow’s post. I was able to find an IOP program at a facility here in Richmond, VA. The IOP met every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings from 5PM-8:30PM. When I came into the program, there were 11 of us. Each night of the program was structured differently, but maintained some of the same elements as well.

On all three nights, check in was from 5-5:30PM. On Mondays the 5-5:30PM check-in period involved us going individually to the nurse’s station to have our vitals and weight recorded. We had “blind” weight taken, which means that we weren’t given the opportunity to ever see the number. On Wednesdays the check-in involved filling out a weekly questionnaire. The questionnaire asked about any changes in our medical records and specific questions about our eating disorder behaviors over the past week. On Thursdays the check-in involved collecting the food that we brought for dinner as we came in and a staff member taking it back to put it into the staff refrigerator.

Each night at 5:30PM, we were all led back to the lockers where we would lock all of our personal belongings up and then hand the keys over to one of the Therapeutic Assistants (TA). On Mondays, we would prepare the group meal from 5:30- around 6:30PM and eat as a group until about 7:15PM. On Wednesdays and Thursdays we had a group “check-in” from 5:30- around 6:30PM and then eat as a group until about 7:15PM. On Wednesdays our meal was prepared for us and served buffet style. On Thursdays we brought our own meals.

After every meal until 7:30PM, we had “meal process”.

On Mondays, from 7:30-8:30PM, we had varying sessions. Sometimes it was “movement” (yoga). Sometimes it was “medical education”. Sometimes it was mindful walking. On Wednesdays, we had art therapy. On Thursdays we had “Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)” group.

That’s the basic structure of my IOP program. Tomorrow, I will start to little-by-little describe in better detail what all of that means, what specifically happened, how it’s helped me or not, etc. It’s really helping me to discuss this journey and I really do appreciate everyone for sticking it out with me. You all are appreciated more than I could ever express.