Testimonial

"Our family has been working for several years recovering from an eating disorder. We have been working with the staff at Monte Nido and their extended family of like minded health professionals. I have found that a multifaceted approach has been effective. At the core of Monte Nido's approach is the use of therapists who themselves have recovered from eating disorders. My experience validates this approach.

I have learned that those afflicted with eating disorders defy a common sense approach. Indeed, if anything, a counter intuitive approach is required because what you see is not what you get. Not only do the eating disordered patients suffer from delusions about how their bodies appear, but the whole family suffers from delusions about what is real and what is not. At the core of this collective delusion lies the fact that the identified patient (the eating disordered person) has been showing the world a totally false yet very well crafted persona. So well crafted, in fact, that all those around her believe that this persona is the real person. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Nobody knows who's in there, not even the eating disordered person.

The value of the recovered therapist is that she knows the truth of this charade from the inside out. Who better to guide the patient and the family through the labyrinth that leads to the discovery of the true person? We give up our delusions and misconceptions about who the patient is and who we are begrudgingly. The recovered therapist knows this to the core as they have lived this nightmare themselves and cherish their true self more than anything, for it is life itself. I don't know about you, but if I am going to descend into the labyrinth I would want someone helping me that has been there knows the way out.

No path is without risks and certainly there are risks associated with a recovered therapist. The Monte Nido approach mitigates this risk by building a multifaceted team that includes highly skilled therapists and other health professionals who have never been afflicted with an eating disorder. This puts the Monte Nido treatment process squarely in the middle, able to access the opposite sides, the inside and the outside, the mind and the body, to bring what is in my opinion a very effective approach to a most baffling, painful and destructive disorder."