Can motivational enhancement therapy improve a cognitive behaviourally based inpatient program for eating disorders?

Most inpatient eating disorder programs include psychological therapy as a major treatment component. The most widespread psychological treatment for eating disorders is cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT). This chapter discusses a study that implemented a motivational enhancement therapy (MET) group program aimed at fostering engagement with the CBT approach of the Wesley Private Hospital inpatient eating disorder unit. Whilst being preliminary in nature due to the small sample size, and short follow-up period, the results of this study suggest that MET could potentially be useful in improving the outcome of brief inpatient hospitalisation within the notoriously difficult eating disorder patient group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)