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Understanding Gendered Realities: Mothers and Father Roles in Family Based Therapy for Adolescent Eating Disorders

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Abstract

Eating disorders are serious and life threatening illnesses that typically present during adolescence. The current recommended treatment for adolescents diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa is Family-Based Therapy. Family-Based Therapy is a manualized treatment that empowers parents to temporarily take control of the eating disorder symptoms. However, literature often discusses the role of parents in treatment, yet the reality is that mothers are often tasked with the difficult role of interrupting symptoms for their adolescent, while fathers remain absent or, at best, a support to the mother. By removing the gender from literature, we are failing to examine ways to better support mothers and engage fathers in family-based treatment. Through the use of case studies and limited literature, this paper will examine how these mothering and fathering expectations surface in treatment, how they may be perpetuated by professionals, and the impact that these gendered expectations may have on mothers and fathers.

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Notes

  1. Emphasis added by author in parentheses throughout the paper. This is to show that the term parent in ED literature is often, in reality, referring to the mother role.

  2. For more information regarding levels of treatment efficacy, please refer to Nathan et al. (2002).

  3. The article does not mention if the parent being quoted was a mother or father. However, in this study the participants were seven mothers and three fathers.

  4. That is, that mothers are in the caregiver role and fathers are typically not as present in the caregiving aspect of treatment.

  5. The removal of parents from their ill-child, as the parents were viewed as a cause of the illness.

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Scarborough, J. Understanding Gendered Realities: Mothers and Father Roles in Family Based Therapy for Adolescent Eating Disorders. Clin Soc Work J 48, 389–401 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-019-00706-2

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