What Are The Treatment Options for Teen Eating Disorders

If you are the parent of a child with an eating disorder, then you must sometimes feel you’re at your wit’s end. It is indeed heartbreaking to watch your child deteriorate before your very eyes. It wasn’t so long ago that they were the epitome of health—vibrant, active, and full of energy. Then, suddenly, as if out of nowhere, anorexia or bulimia struck and the nightmare that is teen eating disorders became a reality in your life.  

Fortunately, there are a variety of eating disorder treatment options available to parents of children with an eating disorder. The type of treatment, however, depends upon the type of eating disorder. Here is a list of some of the options that are presently available:

• Counseling: Counseling can be an effective treatment for teen eating disorders if the condition is detected early enough. Typically, counseling involves going in to see a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other professional therapist once a week with the option to increase the frequency of the sessions if necessary. The counseling sessions could last anywhere from 1-2 years, again, depending on the need. Therapists usually view counseling as the first line of defense for teen eating disorders and are usually recommended at the onset of the eating disorder. Most professionals would begin with counseling before moving on to more comprehensive approaches.
• Day School: Day School is an option that provides a safe learning environment for school-aged children afflicted with an eating disorder. Sometimes children with eating disorders are unable to perform well in a typical learning environment, like a crowded classroom, so more exotic approaches must be undertaken. With a day school, the learning environment becomes more personalized as the student/teacher ratio is reduced to just three students per teacher in most cases. In addition, the curriculum is customized to meet the student’s individual needs so that they are able to proceed with their schooling at a comfortable pace, making the learning process less stressful. And, a licensed clinician is always present to provide clinical support if and when it is needed.
• Residential Treatment Centers: Residential Treatment Centers like Visions are designed to provide your child with 24-hour care to meet their special needs. While there, he/she will not only receive the best medical treatment available, but they will also enjoy the benefits of living in a safe environment with plenty of activities designed to help them come to terms with their illness. The length of time your child stays there can run anywhere from 45-90 days. Your child’s stay will ultimately be determined by the severity of his/her condition.
• Inpatient Treatment: Inpatient Treatment is available for severe cases of teen eating disorders that have otherwise proven unresponsive to less restricted treatments. In this case, they will be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a more comprehensive treatment for their illness. There, they will be placed under the care of a psychiatrist who specializes in the care of teen eating disorders. They will live in a structured environment and be given therapeutic meals throughout the day. All snacks and meals will be administered by trained, professional dietitians who know how to be both encouraging and supportive.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a type of short-term treatment structured to address the psychological aspects of your child’s disorder. It examines how his/her thoughts, feelings, and behaviors affect their eating disorder. Its goal is to help your child see and understand how his/her thought processes, mood swings, and even personality could affect their eating disorder. Then, therapists will use that knowledge to formulate a plan to counteract those negative behaviors that may aggravate or contribute to teen eating disorders.
• Interpersonal Therapy: Interpersonal Therapy focuses on resolving any relationship problems that may have been the cause of your child’s eating disorder. Being a teenager can be very stressful and things that would ordinarily be considered insignificant to adults may become magnified in their eyes. For example, a broken heart can seem like the end of the world to them and may even lead to depression. Untreated, that depression could manifest itself in the form of an eating disorder. Interpersonal therapy can help teens resolve personal issues like relationships, or even feeling unloved by their parents, by getting your child to discus those feelings openly.
• Family Based Therapy: Family Based Therapy brings the whole family in and lets them become a part of their child’s healing process. This approach will not only give parents a chance to learn about teen eating disorders upfront, they will also learn what they can do to help their child recover. The knowledge parents gain at these sessions is crucial part of being able to detect when their child is deviating from the prescribed program or sliding back into their anorexic or bulimic behavior.
• Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy involves meeting with a psychologist, or other mental health provider, along with a group of teens with similar eating disorders. The setting is not unlike that of some 12 step programs where members are encouraged to talk about their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors with people with similar illnesses. In this type of setting, patients with teen eating disorders are encouraged to share their thoughts and feelings, as they relate to their eating disorder, with the hope that they can view them more objectively. By participating in a group setting, patients will be able to see that their condition is not unique and gain strength in viewing their fight as a team effort.
• Medications: Medications are sometimes combined with other therapies for increased effectiveness. Since depression is one of the main causes of teen eating disorders, anti-depressants are the chief medications used to combat this illness. However, depending on the situation, other medications may also be prescribed. Anti-depressants are especially effective against bulimia nervosa (binge eating) since it prevents vomiting and discourages binge eating. Anti-depressants can also be helpful in reducing the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which often accompanies eating disorders.

Teen eating disorder is a debilitating disease that requires specialized care. Consequently, some expense may be incurred. However, parents should not have to worry about money at a time like this. Visions Adolescent Treatment Center can help make the process of getting help for your child go as smoothly as possible.

Visions Residential is a private pay program and full payment is required from the family. Our team will assist with insurance benefit verification & utilization review.

Visions Outpatient works out of network with insurance. We will provide the following services to our Outpatient families: Benefit Verification, Pre-Authorization, Utilization Review, Billing, and Collections.

Please click below to schedule your consultation or call us at 866-889-3665.

Tips on Helping Your Teen Stay Sober This Holiday Season

Considering the effects of alcohol and its several health complications, it is vital to educate your child about it and help them stay sober. So how can you help your teen avoid drinking during the holidays?  

What to do

• Take it seriously – parents often treat alcohol less seriously than drugs. A parent who discovers that his or her teen is drinking may for example respond with a sigh of relief, saying “at least they are not using marijuana or cocaine.” Your first response is very important in setting the tone on how you handle alcohol and substance abuse in the future. You have to be firm and consistent in your reaction to his or her drinking from the beginning.
• You must be the role model – adults are allowed to drink, but as soon as you have a child, you stop being just an adult and become a parent and role model. If your teen often sees you drunk, it might be very difficult to convince them not to give it a try.
• Insist that fellow adults practice responsible drinking – it doesn’t help when all your visiting friends are always drunk.  Do as much as you can to ensure that all the adults in the home and the community at large behave responsibly.
• Speak out about drinking – drinking must never be a secret. If someone comes home drunk, don’t laugh. Instead, explain to the teen what the consequences are.
• Discipline them if they drink – teen drinking is illegal in the first place. They must understand they cannot break national laws and family rules without ramifications.

What not to do

• Don’t store excessive amount of liquor in the home – this can cause a huge temptation. Store the liquor in closed, locked cabinets and not in the open.
• You can’t expect them to make decisions without your guidance – if you don’t tell them it’s bad, no one will. If they are going to a party, you must make it clear that they are not allowed to drink.
• Do not be the one who introduces your teen to the booze – sad as it may sound, research shows that 40% of teens who drink get the booze from adults, particularly their parents which is quite shameful.

Click below or call 866-889-3665 for more information

The Top 10 Ways To Relieve Your Child’s Stress

The belief that children having nothing to stress about as they have so few responsibilities or are too young to understand what is going on around them is a fallacy. Whereas a child may not necessarily understand the issues affecting them or the adults around them, they have a highly sensitive emotional antenna.  

Ways of dealing with and relieving child stress vary, and the most appropriate will be picked based on the applicability of the method, its effectiveness, and its suitability to a child. Listed below are some ways parent can help relieve child stress.

1.Exercise

Exercise is a great way of dealing with child stress. It provides a constructive way of coping with stress and leaves one refreshed. Exercising also results in the release of feel-good hormones that are a natural and a great way of relieving child stress.

2.Healthy Relationships

It is crucial for a child experiencing stress to have the support of family, relatives, peers, and adult authority figures.

3.Avoiding or Doing Away With Substance Abuse

Children and teens with child stress should be well-advised and observed to ensure they are not using drugs.

4.Healthy Eating

Ensuring kids eat regular, well-balanced meals helps in dealing with child stress. Some types of food should also be avoided, such as coffee, sugar, and high sugar content snacks.

5.Learning and Using Relaxation Techniques

Various relaxation techniques should be taught to those suffering from child stress. Not only do the techniques relieve stress, they serve to teach a child that stress can be dealt with constructively through discipline and practice.

6.Acquiring and Using Coping Skills

Coping skills, such as breaking down a task into sub-tasks, help in dealing with child stress.

7.Relaxation and Rest

Ensuring a child sleeps well, rests adequately during the day, and learns to pace themselves helps reduce child stress and its effects.

8.Develop a Better Mental Attitude and Self-Image

It is all in the mind, and techniques such as positive thinking are effective measures against child stress.

9.Sharing With Others

Encourage your child to confide in older siblings or adults when in distress.

10.Seeking Help

It is advisable to see a child psychologist or to visit a therapy center.

Seek the advice of Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers.  Click below or call us on 866-889-3665

Why is My Daughter Always Sad and Down

One of the many challenges presented by teenagers during adolescence is increased moodiness. While it is normal for teens to be moody from time to time, and increasingly more so than adults, prolonged moodiness should be a source of worry for parents. Cases of depression in children have been on the rise as the pace of life gets faster as a result of technological and other advances.  

Depression in teens can result in a teen always being moody, withdrawn, and anti-social and with feelings of worthlessness. They even go as far as to being involved in self-injury or attempting suicide.

It is therefore important for a parent to be able to tell the signs of depression in children. Some of the things that indicate a child is suffering from depression include apathy, an unhealthy interest in death and dying, change in eating habits, irritability, anger management issues and lashing out, anxiety, and substance abuse.

Girls seem to be more prone to depression, especially in the preteens and teens. A parent should be on the lookout for eating disorders and self-injury. Girls who are having image problems or other types of challenges try to regain control in their life in such negative ways.

Controlling their diets enables them to feel they are at least in control of their body image, even when the problem is all in how they see themselves. Self-injury is usually a result of great emotional pain or distress, and teens who engage in it do so in a bid to blunt the emotional pain with physical pain. It is also a move to take control of the pain one experiences, instead of suffering pain perceived to be caused by others.

Dealing with depression in children requires that a parent takes immediate action if they suspect their daughter is depressed. Some of the ways to help relieve depression include keeping busy, exercise (which results in release of feel-good hormones), and having healthy relationships. A parent should strive to create such an environment to relieve the depression of their daughter.

Depression in children is treated in a number of ways, each of which should be tailored specifically to the child. Children and teenagers therapy centers such as Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers are experienced in dealing with depression in children. Please call one of our specialists at Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers at 866-889-3665 or click below for more information.

Locate Licensed Teen Recovery Centers in California

Teens can and do recover from mental illnesses no matter how complicated the conditions are. Recovery is an individual experience, however – no two people can have the same recovery paths. Recovery is therefore best defined by the person experiencing a mental illness. To most people however, the term means the ability to live a wholesome life within the limits of mental illness. This is also known as personal recovery.  

The other type of recovery known as   clinical recovery means getting back to normalcy or being free of symptoms. The teen recovery program offered at Visions facilities caters for both clinical and personal recovery, prioritizing in enabling the teens to live a meaningful and peaceful life in the presence or absence of symptoms. A successful recovery restores hope, control, acceptance, basic needs, and induces meaningful activity.

Recovery is a process, a vision, and an outlook. Even with the services offered at Visions licensed teen recovery centers, teens will need the support of friends, family, and those closest to him or her. The sad truth is that affected teens might never return to where they were before. They may never be able to have full control of the symptoms. So recovery programs seek to empower the mentally ill adolescents so that they regain control of their lives.

On their road to recovery, the teens will need good relationships, financial security, and a sense of personal growth and development of personal, cultural, and spiritual perspectives. The kids also need to be resilient with the knowledge that there are bound to be times of difficulty even after the treatment. Those around them can help by making the teens feel important. They should see that people still believe in them. They need to be listened to and understood. It is only normal that they will ask questions about their problems and experience; when such times come, they should get meaningful explanations.

Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers, located in southern California, offer current programs that can help any teen understand their mental problems and set on a road to long-term recovery, with the hep and involvement of their family and friends.

Call us on 866-889-3665 or click below for more information on licensed teen recovery centers.

Find Top Adolescent Treatment in Malibu, California

Teens can now find top treatment for mental health, substance abuse and co-occurring disorders at the homely adolescent residential treatment facility in Malibu, California. Some of the benefits of the facility include; 

• Motivation of teens to attain and sustain a healthy lifestyle.
• Helping the teens discover situations where drugs and destructive behavior have been applied to cope with problems and making them understand that such practice may not be a long term solution to their problems.
• Help adolescents develop new, effective solutions to the challenges they face in life.
• Assisting adolescents in identifying and changing behaviors that may lead to relapse.
• Engaging the family or significant people around the teen in the rehabilitation process to foster unity within the family.
• Arrange for referral of the teens if it becomes clear that the services they need are not offered at the facility.

Services offered

There are three categories of services offered at the facility; therapeutic, adjunct, and family treatment.

Therapeutic services include medical assessment, substance abuse assessment, psychosocial assessment as well as psychiatric assessment. A treatment plan is then developed and treatment soon commences. Counseling is performed by professionals under the watchful eye of the program director. Residents are treated as individuals, groups, and with their families.

Adjunct services directly enhance treatment goals of the residents. They include an onsite school, a physical fitness program tailored to the needs of the individuals, nutritional services providing calorie appropriate meals and snacks, and equine therapy and psychological screenings and tests which help in determining interdisciplinary treatment. Adjunct services also include discharge and aftercare-planning for continued support even after the teens leave the facility.

Families normally suffer just like the affected teen. They go through a period of confusion marked by anxiety, fear, anger, hopelessness, and helplessness. By providing a minimum of 5 hours of family therapy every week, Visions helps the family accept relationships and understand their roles.

Following a successful completion of a treatment program, the teens are allowed to join and participate in the Visions alumni program, also known as the Fourth Dimension. They will be able to attend events and are assisted in prevention of relapse. The alumni coordinator also periodically calls members to follow up on their progress.

Call Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers on 866-889-3665 or click below for more information on top adolescent treatment.

Find Reliable Mental Health Care for Children in the Southern CA Area

No one is perfectly mentally well, and no one can be completely mentally ill. Everyone in society exists somewhere between the two extremes. If we are not challenged by biological factors such as genetics or abnormities in the brain or the rest of the body, it may be easier to achieve a healthier state of the mind. However, sometimes these biological challenges become unbearable for the mind and that is when our thinking patterns are adversely affected resulting in mental illness. Nevertheless, even in such circumstances, we can still develop skills and make use of psychological tools to help us maximize our potential, enjoy life, and achieve our goals.  

It can be painful to see your child suffering from mental illness, but that’s what’s expected as a parent. You love the child and you don’t want him or her to be unwell. There are several things that you can do to help your son or daughter achieve a healthier state of the mind. These are the same principles used as Visions Mental Health Centers in southern CA, though on a professional level. They include;

• Self appreciation

Self appreciation involves identifying what is right and what is NOT right with us. This would allow us to appreciate our strengths. If you know what is wrong with you it also becomes easier to know what to do to improve your mental wellness.

• Resilience

Resilience is all about dealing with and recovering from a change, misfortune, hardship and shock. For one to be resilient there is a need for optimism, perspective and belief.

• Affiliation

Mentally unwell children tend to withdraw from other people. Affiliation is the ability to get close to people, negotiate, make friends, and form social networks. Negotiation here means the ability to see what we may be missing and to allow ourselves to learn these things from others and change our lives based on acquired facts.

• Exercise, leisure, and curiosity

These are all tools that have been proven to aid in gaining mental wellness. They have a lot in common but are distinct in how they work. For example, exercises protect against depression while dancing and reading enhance brain activity.

Call 866-889-3665 to speak to a professional at Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers