Family caregivers of those with eating disorders have often told me that it broke their hearts to take a child or other loved one to a Residential Treatment Center (RES or RTC). Often this can feel like a “last ditch effort” to families new to this. Learning the realities of what a RTC is and is not and what the roles are is a steep learning curve for families. Most family caregivers are; terrified, sad, have very little hope and are unaware and unprepared for what to expect and how to best support a loved one. The goal of the RTC topic in my HUG Kit videos and guidebook is to help family car ..read more

How Education about Eating Disorders Helps Caregivers BE More Effective for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder When a loved one is diagnosed with a serious illness, some of us want to run and hide and pretend it’s not happening. Some of us will be frozen with fear, some will want to learn everything possible. And I’m sure there are dozens of other responses. What I know is that pretty much every family member I have ever spoken with has said at some point, “I would DO anything help my loved one be free of this eating disorder.” One of the actual things you can DO as a family car ..read more

While waking up this morning this all came to me in about 15 minutes. You see, today, after a month of alternately working my tail off and walking my talk of life balance with self-care, fun, friends and colleagues, my family are coming to visit us in Palm Desert and I’m going to focus on fun, family, self-care and letting all the other stuff go for a few days. The 2nd edition of “Just Tell Her To Stop: Family Stories of Eating Disorders” is coming along. After I write this I need to work on a couple extra chapters. Phew. Then rest. As daylight was working it’s way into my non-morning person a ..read more

Family caregivers receiving support is a factor in treatment outcomes. We finally have research showing that treatment outcomes improve when caregivers have support! Check out this research link from 2021: Sheetal Patel , Autumn Shafer , Jane Brown , Cynthia Bulik & Nancy Zucker (2014) Parents of Children With Eating Disorders: Developing Theory-Based Health Communication Messages to Promote Caregiver Well-Being, Journal of Health Communication, 19:5, 593-608, DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2013.821559 PDF in my google drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bwo4EXZS2LxALXJDUUktU05fVzQ ..read more

Imagine if there was an easy, convenient resource to help family caregivers get the information, support and help they need to cope with this unplanned role they’ve been given…Clinicians and family caregivers, this is for you! For my newsletter subscribers, I’m sharing tips from each of the 10 Topics covered in the HUG Kits as we celebrate the 5th Anniversary of the launch of the HUG Kits, here is the second HUG Kit Topic from the 10 part video series and downloadable guidebook on “Oxygen.” The goal for this chapter topic is: Getting your oxygen mask firmly in place.  ..read more

Clinicians and family caregivers alike often ask if there is an easy, convenient resource to help family caregivers get the information, support and help they need to cope with this unplanned role they’ve been given. Some of you have asked if I’m still providing coaching. Yes, both referral partners and I are still here providing one on one coaching and I still lead the weekly and monthly group support calls.  Some families are not able to access those options and to make the support more accessible to more folks at a very reasonable rate, I created the HUG Kits a while bac ..read more

Next week I’ll be sharing Intern Anna’s wonderful tips for relieving holiday stress that some of you may remember from last year. Her article is HERE on my website. So if my tips today for preventing holiday stress don’t resonate or work for you, take a sneak peek at her tips for relieving some of that stress. Those of you who are new to this journey may be learning that our loved ones with the Eating Disorders are challenged with finding that place between black-and-white, right and wrong, good and bad. Some call this place; the middle path, the gray area or all the colors of the rainbow for ..read more

Family caregivers have shared how utterly painful and difficult the holidays are for their loved one with an eating disorder. Thanksgiving typically being the most difficult with so much of the focus on food for many families. Last year Intern Anna shared her helpful wisdom on preparing for this holiday. I’m very grateful to Intern Anna for sharing her wisdom and I’m happy to reprise it again this year. Please be gentle with yourselves and your loved ones and remember that it’s okay and often helpful to shift your expectations and your traditions to help your loved one in recovery to cope. An ..read more

Family caregivers of those with eating disorders often STILL get a bad rap. Thankfully, many clinicians now see the value in supporting these caregivers who are typically trying to help save a family member’s life. It’s still very common sadly to hear clinicians say things like, “Parents are trying to control the situation.” or “I’m so tired of parents trying to push their own agenda.” And on and on. Many clinicians have had their own eating disorder and some sadly, have had abusive parents as their own lived experience. Unfortunately, the view of ALL parents is then clouded with this unsavo ..read more

Hello Dear Caregivers and Clinical Colleagues, I hope you are able to have some moments to renew your spirits this holiday weekend. Not only are the hours of sunlight short in the northern hemisphere and the coming days getting cooler (thank goodness after what has been a very hot summer for most places), the world can be a very uncertain and scary place. I’m walking my talk of PRACTICING resilience skills. For those of you who are regular readers of this newsletter/blog, first of all, THANK YOU! Second of all, you may recognize this piece on resilience from a while back. Like balance, resil ..read more