A review of psychotherapeutic interventions for children and adolescents with eating disorders.

OBJECTIVE: Psychotherapeutic interventions for child and adolescent eating disorders have recently received increasing attention in the research literature. This article attempts to summarize these studies. METHOD: The current literature was reviewed using the PubMed and Embase databases under the search terms eating disorders, child, adolescent, and psychotherapy. Here we will present a practical overview of the current evidence for psychotherapeutic interventions in this clinical population. RESULTS: There have been some very promising findings with regards to specific types of therapy for anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED). CONCLUSIONS: The best evidence available suggests that family-therapy models are most effective for treating adolescents with AN, and that CBT models are most effective for adolescent BN, although family-based treatment may also be effective for adolescents with BN. Too few studies have been done on BED in adolescents to draw any conclusions; however CBT, IPT and DBT are all theoretically promising.