A Day in the Life
Treatment at Eating Recovery Center is thoughtfully programmed to meet the unique needs of each patient at every stage of their recovery. To get a sense for how you might spend your time while in treatment with us, we invite you to download sample schedules below, or scroll down to learn about our daily programming from Enola Gorham, LCSW, CEDS, Clinical Director of Adult Services, and Elizabeth Davis, PsyD, Clinical Director of Child and Adolescent Services.
Download an Adult Inpatient/Residential Program Sample Schedule.
Download an Adult Partial Hospitalization Program Sample Schedule.
Download an Adult Evening Intensive Outpatient Program Sample Schedule.
Download a Child and Adolescent Program Sample Schedule.
Adult Program:
Enola Gorham, Clinical Director of Adult Services, explains what an average day might look like for an adult man or woman in treatment at Eating Recovery Center:
“A patient’s daily schedule at Eating Recovery Center is designed to not only facilitate treatment and therapy but also to provide structure and support necessary to interrupt problem behaviors. Patients begin the day with breakfast, followed by a recovery skills group. A snack is served mid-morning—a lot of the day has to do with food and supporting patients around food and meals.
From the time snack ends until early afternoon, patients spend their day with their primary therapists and their village. All the patient members of a village meet with their primary therapist daily for a community meeting. Community meeting is an opportunity to increase the patient’s interpersonal skills, as well as to provide the patients with the opportunity to learn how to build a community of support for their recovery. Individuals who suffer with eating disorders typically have deep shame and guilt and most often have become very secretive or isolated. The community meeting helps patients to address issues of shame, and to move out of secrecy and isolation. Patients are taught how to ask for support and help to make difficult behavioral changes.
Primary therapists eat lunch with their patients. It is very important to have the primary therapist see how a patient interacts with food, and for them to see firsthand how the eating disordered behaviors are interrupting the patient’s ability to eat a meal. With this knowledge, therapist can craft interventions to specifically address disordered eating behaviors, and can directly support the patient at the meal to make behavioral changes. After lunch, patients go into a process group with their therapist. The Process groups are smaller groups than the community groups, and provide a place for the patient to process their experiences from the community meetings, from lunch, and from life. An afternoon snack is served, followed by participation in psycho-educational or experiential groups, including cooking groups, art therapy and psychodrama.
Dinner is served in the early evening, after which patients in the Partial Hospitalization level of care return to their homes or peer-supported, recovery-focused apartment communities after dinner, while those at the Inpatient and Residential levels of care generally have free time designed for relaxation and reflection and participate in evening sleep protocols to help prepare them for a restful night’s sleep.
The day is very structured, and we use every one of those hours to focus on recovery.”
Child/Adolescent Program:
Elizabeth Easton, PsyD, Clinical Director of Child and Adolescent Services, explains what an average day might look like for a child or adolescent in treatment at Eating Recovery Center.
“Each day, there is structure and predictability around meals and snacks, therapy sessions and some of the groups. For the most part, our young patients see the schedule every day, and they know what to expect for the next hour or the next evening.
When patients wake up in the morning, they get ready for the day and have breakfast together. After breakfast, they spend two hours working on school work with our licensed teacher. A short snack is followed by a community meeting, where patients and therapists discuss the dynamics of the treatment environment. After lunch, patients participate in a process group with their primary therapist and then move into the lounge, where they can really spend time with each other and have downtime. An afternoon snack is served, after which patients move into a therapy group, including a skills group or art therapy. Dinner is served in the early evening, and is followed by a short wrap up group.
In the evenings, patients work on anxiety management and connecting with one another. For the most part, patients are encouraged to do things that get them “out of their heads” for a little while and get them to just feel like kids again, including playing games, making phone calls to their families, drawing, reading, even doing homework. These activities help them feel connected to their lives before coming to Eating Recovery Center. Patient Care Assistants (PCAs) are constantly coming up with creative ways to get the patients interacting with each other to keep patients from isolating or getting lost in their thoughts.”
Please contact us for more information about our recovery services. We are happy to put you in touch with former patients to learn about their experiences with Eating Recovery Center and how our programs have helped them achieve lasting eating disorders recovery.
