Psychotherapy May Help Cure Anorexia in Women

Good news for anorexic women whose disorder has not become too severe. You can now cure your disorder successfully on an out-patient basis.

The Anorexia Nervosa Treatment of OutPatients (ANTOP) study was conducted at ten German university eating disorder centers and was designed by the departments for psychosomatic medicine at the university hospitals of Heidelberg and Tubingen. The ANTOP study included 242 adult women who were under therapy over a period of 22 months (10 months of therapy, 12 months of follow-up observation.

There were three groups of either 82 or 80 patients, each of the group underwent a different method of out-patient psychotherapy. The therapy had two new psychotherapy methods that were specially developed for out-patient treatment of anorexia and an optimized form of the currently practiced standard psychotherapy.

The treatment manuals were developed in conjunction with international eating disorder experts. The therapy encompass 40 out-patient individual therapy sessions over a period of 10 months.

There were positive outcomes and even after conclusion of therapy, they continue to make significant weight gains.

The study has been published in journal The Lancet.

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