Eating disorders concentration

This concentration offers fellows specialized experience with the evaluation and treatment of eating disorders. Specifically, fellows conduct individual, family, and group therapy at the inpatient, partial, and intensive outpatient levels of care with patients who have a wide variety of eating disorders and comorbid psychiatric disorders. There are also opportunities to hone assessment skills by administering psychological tests. Fellows participate in the multi-disciplinary treatment team and collaborate with attending psychiatrists, psychiatry fellows, family therapists and other unit staff in their work with patients. Fellows carry a therapy caseload, attend multidisciplinary rounds, co-lead groups, and consult with patients’ support systems outside the hospital to coordinate services.

In addition to the general objectives shared by the training program for all postdoctoral fellows, the fellow in the eating disorders specialization will:

• Become proficient in providing individual therapy to patients with a wide variety of eating disorders (i.e. anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, and conversion disorders). Supervision within a variety of treatment modalities will be provided (i.e. insight-oriented therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy and behavioral interventions).
• Become proficient in facilitating a variety of different process-oriented and didactic group therapies (i.e. latency play groups, eating disorder groups, teen groups, relapse prevention groups, and parent education groups).
• Become proficient with a variety of assessment techniques to answer a variety of referral questions (i.e. cognitive functioning, emotional functioning).
• Become part of a multidisciplinary team that follows and treats patients. The team includes psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, milieu therapists, family therapists, medical students, and child and adolescent psychiatry fellows).
• Have an opportunity to work with patients along the treatment continuum (patients in the inpatient hospitalization program, the partial hospitalization program, and the intensive outpatient program).     

For more information about the Eating Disorders concentration, please contact:
Jasmine Ghannadpour, Ph.D.
Jasmine.Ghannadpour@childrens.com

Concentration faculty 

• Jasmine Ghannadpour, Ph.D.
• Andy McGarrahan, Ph.D.