OK, but why?

Since FEAST published a position statement on Parentectomy, I have heard from parents overjoyed we took a stand on this. Parents described being excised from treatment, isolated from loved ones, left out of decision-making, and treated as unnecessary if not harmful to the recovery process. Not all, and not all the time, but frequently and harmfully.

From clinicians I have heard two responses: "bravo" or "that doesn't happen any more."

The ones who say "bravo," for the most part, are the ones who offer family-based treatment and run clinics that treat the illness as just that, and the family as part of the treatment team.

The "that doesn't happen any more" has come from, in two cases, clinics that severely restrict parent access to patients. At one, parents are allowed one hour a day with hospitalized patients - in a hospital where other wards offer rooming-in for parents. At the other, visitation must be arranged in advance and requested to be brief.

This may seem obvious, but why would that be? Why would eating disorder patients, even small children, be treated so differently from other ill people? Why wouldn't parents be able to stay with their children, or be welcome for visitation other times than 7-8pm on weeknights and 1-3 on weekends? Why are parents optional in the daily lives of their children with an eating disorder, but not leukemia or knee surgery?

Why would eating disorder patients be restricted from seeing parents based on their "cooperation" with treatment when the illness itself causes that lack of cooperation? Why would phone times be restricted? Why would a patient need to "earn" time with his or her parents? Are they being hospitalized because they need medical help or to get them away from the home?

There is a cost to losing one's daily contact with parents. The damage of the illness being compounded by alienation from the central adults in one's life. How, do you imagine, does a young person of any age feel about the family they come home to - when that home and parenting was so unnecessary during hospitalization?

Not all clinics have these kinds of policies, I might add. Some eating disorder clinics actually require parents to be there, some begin training the parents from the first day in how to manage meals, how to address resistance, in the dynamics of the illness, and in the stages of recovery.

And if those clinics don't consider parentectomy part of the treatment, it calls into question why anyone would.

Comments

  1. Laura, my question to those places that say "It doesn't happen any more" would be "Yes, but does it happen any LESS?" ;>

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  2. Laura's comment "Why would eating disorder patients be restricted from seeing parents based on their "cooperation" with treatment when the illness itself causes that lack of cooperation? Why would phone times be restricted? Why would a patient need to "earn" time with his or her parents? "

    Oh wow, this is exactly what happens! Not only is the child being punished but so are the parents. So this is parentectomy too?

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  3. I think it is a form of parentectomy and I see nothing NOTHING to justify it.

    And I think the damage that even subtle parentectomy causes is great and far-reaching.

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  4. It's just as difficult when in the name of "adulthood" the treatment teams do NOT always encourage the one with the ED to share with their family. I expected more from a college which was asking us for all sorts of private information and sending us bills. How could we begin to help when they kept it a secret? I was infuriated, still am, at how someone with a mental illness is expected to advocate for themselves and somehow figure out treatment.
    The end of the story was a success but her recovery required family. If someone really doesn't want their parents to know they ought to pick someone to be a support person. No one should go through this alone.

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  5. Adults would like as much time with their families to visit and make/receive phone calls, but there are groups and meals to attend. I was a patient at a 1-3 and 7-8 hospital, and patients are free to make phone calls in between groups (essentially all day). And, visiting is actually much longer b/c families can eat meals on units with their patient ... and then stay through the usual non-visiting "observation" period.

    Additionally, at "levels" above just-admitted, patients can have "passes" on or off-grounds for anywhere from 1-4 hours, some including food/meals/snacks ... some "non-food."

    Plus, families come for family meetings outside of visiting hours, and parents of minors come to do meal-planning with their child (when I was there, parents were there every day ... sometimes within visiting hours, sometimes within the scheduled "meal-planning group" time).

    These options were valid as of last week.

    Just to add information to the discussion.

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