Psychological Approach to Eating Disorders in Adolescents and Young People

Among young people, eating disorders (ED) are highly prevalent and challenge young people, families and health professionals with high biopsychosocial impact. Psychological treatments, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy and family therapy, have evidence of their efficacy in this population. In addition, in recent years progress has been made in new psychological approaches to increase the therapeutic success of treatments available to date. In the workshop it will be presented in a practical way the individual and family outpatient approach to cases of adolescents and young people who demand clinical attention for different eating disorders. It will presented how to apply gradually the evaluation, the design of the intervention plan and the training of the ideal therapeutic style in different cases of anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder in adolescents and young people. Finally, recent advances in clinical research will be discussed in promising new psychological programs that include the use of new technologies, the adaptation of therapies such as dialectical behavioral therapy for this population and the integration of basic research and new neurobiological and neuropsychological findings into clinical practice.

Gloria García Fernández is Assistant Professor in the Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment at the University of Oviedo and a member of the Addictive Behaviour Group at this university. She has extensive clinical and research experience in the evaluation and clinical intervention of addictive behaviours and eating disorders. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Oviedo, an Extraordinary Doctorate Award, Specialist Psychologist in Psychotherapy (Europsy), a Master’s Degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Degree in Psychology from the Pontifical University of Salamanca. In the clinical field, she has trained in the Eating Disorders unit of the Niño Jesús University Children’s Hospital and has worked as a psychologist in the ITEM centre (Madrid), specialised in tackling TCA, combining her clinical activity with academic activity as an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology of the Complutense University of Madrid. She has recently completed a research stay at the UCSD Eating Disorders Center For Treatment and Research at the University of San Diego in California and at the Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Monash in Melbourne to train in new intervention protocols for addictions, eating disorders and obesity.