Who’s in the Room? A Parent-Focused Family Therapy for Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa

Family therapy is often assumed to involve the whole family; that is both parents and children attending the therapist’s office together. In practice, however, which family members are included in family therapy, how often, and in what ways, is much more variable. In this article we provide an overview of the recent history of family therapy in regard to who is directly involved in therapy, and contrast changing practices in the eating disorders field with those in the family therapy field more widely. This overview leads into a discussion of current practices in family-based treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa and the development of a new form of family therapy that is parent-focused.