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By Jennifer Brewer
Thanks to a $2.5 million private grant, McLean Hospital in Belmont
has opened a new, inclusive treatment center for girls and young
women (ages 13-22) with eating disorders. The Klarman Eating Disorders
Center, located in the renovated Bowditch Building on the McLean
campus, has a staff of 25, including psychiatrists, psychologists,
nutritionists, social workers, nurses, an expressive therapist,
an internist, clinical educators and mental health specialists.
The grant resulted from one family's motivation to fund a local
treatment center after having traveled to New Orleans for their
daughter's care.
According to Philip Levendusky, Ph.D., vice president of new program
development and director of the psychology department at McLean,
the Klarmans approached several Massachusetts hospitals looking
for proposals that would be "consistent with the ideals they had
in mind." Levendusky says that the Klarmans consulted with staff
from The Eating Disorders Treatment Center of River Oaks Hospital
in New Orleans in order to ensure that the new center would match
those ideals.
McLean was chosen for several reasons, says Levendusky, who ran
McLean's former eating disorders unit. "The Klarmans liked the feel
of the grounds and environment, our substantial history of treatment,
and that the hospital was willing to renovate a building for the
new center," he says.
The renovation was undertaken with both practicality and comfort
in mind, to facilitate the comprehensive care offered by the Klarman
Center. The building now includes a seven-bed inpatient unit as
well as a 10-bed residential unit, in addition to comfortably appointed
common rooms.
Emily Gordon, Psy.D., was the clinical coordinator of McLean's
adolescent acute residential treatment program and now coordinates
clinical services at Klarman. Gordon has been leading the development
of the group program curriculum and milieu for the center. In addition
to supervised meals, individual and family therapy, patients will
spend much of their day engaged in group activity and discussion,
including sessions on coping skills, expressive therapy, body image,
media and nutrition.
The overarching goal of the Center is to empower patients, says
Gordon. "Eating disorder symptoms often result when individuals
attempt to cope with difficult thoughts, feelings and experiences
in any way that they know how. We want to help the patient feel
more in control of the recovery process."
Building self-esteem is central to working with patients with eating
disorders, partly because these disorders usually present with other
mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and substance
abuse. "The keystone to depression and anxiety is self-esteem,"
says Levendusky, "and children go through attacks on their self-esteem
every day."
Gordon believes that the Klarmans' grant was essential to the creation
of the only center in New England to "provide a continuum of care
dedicated to the treatment of eating disorders. It's difficult to
treat eating disorders. It's complicated and expensive," she continues.
"You need a multidisciplinary team in order to devote all the services
needed."
The inpatient unit will be able to care for patients in need of
such services as feeding tubes and monitoring of vital signs. While
patients may be admitted to the more intensive care of the inpatient
unit then progress to the residential unit as their condition improves,
the initial admission may be to either unit. Levendusky anticipates
stays of approximately seven to 10 days in the inpatient unit and
two to four weeks in the residential unit. Gordon calls it "foreseeable"
that at some time in the future, the Center might also provide outpatient
services, as well as specialized treatment tracks to focus in a
more complex way on individual mental health issues.
Gordon is excited to be involved in the Center's infancy, particularly
as it is devoted to adolescents, who are "developing their own ideas
and reflecting on themselves. It's a wonderful opportunity to help
someone get on the right track," she says.
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