Eating Disorder Glossary of Terms

Common Levels of Care:

OP: Outpatient: The patient lives at home and attends regularly scheduled sessions (usually 45-50 minutes) at a therapist’s office.  This typically includes one or more sessions per week.  Outpatients’ treatment does not usually include supervised meals. ERC has an excellent Outpatient department for patients who do not already have an outpatient therapist.

IOP: Intensive Outpatient Program: The patient lives at home but spends some of their time at a clinic for therapy sessions and limited meal support.  Eating Recovery Center’s IOP program is open to Adults and runs 3 days per week, 4 hours per day and includes a supervised meal.

PHP: Partial Hospitalization Program: The patient lives at home but spends six or twelve hours per day, five to seven days per week at a hospital or clinic for individual, group, family sessions and medical oversight, and meal support.  Some PHP programs will provide housing.  PHP is available in the ERC continuum of care for both child and adult patients.  ERC’s Partial Hospitalization Programs include housing, run 7 days a week, 11 ½ hours each day, and include meal supervision and support. 
 
IP: Inpatient: The patient is hospitalized, usually for medical and/or psychiatric stabilization. and may or may not receive therapy.  Hospitalization can occur on a voluntary or involuntary basis.  Some hospitals have psychiatric beds for involuntarily admitted patients and some do not. Meal support at a general center usually focuses on medical stabilization (not weight restoration) and may not include regular meal support. ERC has separate inpatient hospitals children and for adults. The Adult Inpatient program has abilities to support both voluntary and involuntary patients. Both Inpatient hospitals have full meal support with goals of weight restoration and provide strong psychotherapy programming.

Residential: The patient lives full time at a specialized eating disorder center where 24/7 care is provided.  Residential care is usually indicated when outpatient interventions have not been successful at interruption eating disorder symptoms and when the patient needs a highly controlled environment to restore weight, stop binge eating, purging, exercising or other self-destructive behaviors. ERC provides Residential levels for in both their child and adult continuums of care.
 
Common Therapy Terms:
 
Psychotherapy is therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client, patient, family, couple, or group. Psychotherapy includes interactive talk -based processes between a person or group and a qualified mental health professional (psychiatrist, psychologist, clinical social worker, licensed counselor, or other trained practitioner). Its purpose is the exploration of thoughts, feelings and behavior for the purpose of problem solving or achieving higher levels of functioning.
 
Mindfulness: Mindfulness therapies are cognitive based therapies .Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation, focus on becoming aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and accepting them, but not attaching or reacting to them.
 
ACT: (pronounced as the word “act”) Acceptance and commitment therapy: a type of psychotherapy that is designed to help people change behaviors. It is an empirically-based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways that focus on  commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. The emphasis of ACT is on ongoing present moment awareness, valued directions and committed action.
 
DBT: Dialectical Behavior Therapy:  a type of psychotherapy that is designed to help people change behaviors.  DBT designed to help people change patterns of behavior that are not effective, such as self-harm, suicidal thinking and substance abuse. DBT assumes that people are doing the best that they can, but either are lacking the skills or are influenced by positive or negative reinforcement that interfere with one’s functioning.
 
CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:  a type of psychotherapy that is designed to help people change behaviors.  CBT assumes that faulty thought patterns cause maladaptive behavior and emotional responses. The treatment focuses on changing thoughts in order to solve psychological and personality problems. Cognitive-Behavioral therapy attempts to change clients’ unhealthy behavior through cognitive restructuring.
 
FBT: Family Based Treatment-(also called Maudsley  Approach): FBT is a specific form of family therapy which is designed for the treatment of anorexia nervosa in adolescents. FBT is built around the principle that parents themselves are the best people to bring their child back to full health, given their unparalleled expertise of their child, and their dedication to their child’s wellbeing.
 
Maudsley Approach:  See FBT, Family Based Treatment.
 
FCT: Family Centered Treatment: Family therapy designed and implemented at ERC based on the principles of FBT & best practices for hospital based ED treatment with child and adolescents.
 
Expressive Therapy: Expressive arts therapy is its own therapeutic discipline. Expressive arts includes:  Art therapy, movement therapy, storytelling, music therapy, and other expressive modalities with the goal of  helping patient address psychological issues and return to health.
 
 Psychodrama: A psychotherapeutic technique in which people are assigned roles to be played spontaneously within a dramatic context devised by a therapist in order to understand the behavior of people with whom they have difficult interactions.
  
Art Therapy: Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy.  Art Therapy uses the creative process of making art to improve a person’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
 
Family Therapy (also referred to as couples therapy, marriage and family therapy): Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. It emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health.
 
Milieu Therapy (also called therapeutic milieu or therapeutic community) is based on the assumption that the social milieu itself is an instrument of treatment. The patient community can be a powerful force in encouraging, supporting and maintaining treatment goals. Structured group settings are a key factor in the outcome of the treatment uses the combined elements of positive peer pressure, trust, safety, and repetition for group members to work through their psychological issues.
 
Nutritional Therapy: A therapeutic approach to the treating the medical and psychological conditions of eating disorders.   A specifically tailored meal plan devised and monitored by a registered dietitian or professional nutritionist. The diet is based upon the patient's medical and psychosocial history, physical examination, functional examination and dietary history.
 
CRT: Cognitive remediation therapy: An interactive treatment which combines practical exercises with discussions about their relevance to the patient’s everyday life. It addresses the process rather than the content of thinking, thus helping patients to develop a metacognitive awareness of their own thinking style.
 
ERP: Exposure and Response Prevention is a treatment method based in cognitive behavior therapy and used for a variety of anxiety disorders, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias.
 
ERC: Eating Recovery Center
www.eatingrecoverycenter.com
 
NAMI:   National Alliance on Mental Illness The nation’s largest nonprofit, grassroots mental health education, advocacy and support organization
www.nami.org
 
IAEDP: International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals.  IAEDP provides the CEDS certification (Certified Eating Disorder Specialist) and promotes a high level of professionalism among practitioners who treat those suffering from eating disorders.
www.iaedp.com
 
AED: Academy for Eating Disorders. The Academy for Eating Disorders is a global professional association committed to leadership in eating disorders research, education, treatment and prevention.
 
Common Credentials for Eating Disorder Providers: Degrees, Licenses & Certifications

Clinical Staff: all staff who give direct care services to patients.  At ERC this includes, but not limited to: Physicians, Psychiatrist, Nurses, Patient Care Assistants (PCA) Milieu coordinators (MC) Registered Dietitians (RD) Dietary support staff, Case Managers, and Therapist.

ATR: Art Therapist Registered

CEDS: Certified Eating Disorder Specialist-A certification offered by the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IADEP)

Counselor: A generic term for someone who counsels

DNP: Doctor of Nursing

DO: Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine-A professional doctoral degree for physicians and surgeons offered by medical schools in the United States.

Dr.: Doctor could be a M.D., Ph.D., a Psy.D. Ed.D. D.O. a DCSW

Ed.D.: Doctorate of Education

FAAFP: Fellow American Association of Family Practice

FACA: Fellow of the American Dietetic Association

FAED: Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders

FIPA: Fellow of the International Psychoanalytic Association

FSAM: Fellow Society for Adolescent Medicine

LCSW: Licensed Clinical Social Worker: a mental health professional with a master degree (MSW) in social work and two years of supervised clinical experience.
 
LCSW-C: Licensed Certified Social Worker-Clinical: Master’s in Social Work, Clinical

LMHC: Licensed Mental Health Counselor

LMSW: Licensed Master Social Worker

LN: Licensed Nutritionist

LPC: Licensed Professional Counselor.  A type of counseling license generally held by a masters level gradate or professional

LMFT: Licensed Marriage and family therapist: a Master’s level therapist specialized in marriage and family therapy

M.D.: a Medical Doctor or Physician

MSW: Masters in Social Work (May have a specialization such as psychiatric social work, or child and family counseling)

MSN: Master of Science in Nursing

NPP: Nurse Practitioner in Psychiatry

Ph.D.:  Doctor of Philosophy-any discipline. A doctoral degree requires extended graduate level university training. This training generally lasts 4-6 years after completing regular college bachelor degree programs

PNP: Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner

Psychiatrist: A medical Doctor of Physician (M.D.) who has completed a multi-year residency in psychiatry (May have a specialization in general psychiatry, child or adolescent psychiatry)
Psy.D: Doctor of Psychology

Therapist or Psychotherapist: this a generic term and does not apply to any specific credentials

RCC: Registered Clinical Counselor

R.D.: Registered Dietician

Patient Advocate: staff member within ERC system trained to oversee and investigate any patient concerns.