Remuda Ranch's Art Therapy Program Benefits Patients with Eating Disorders.

Business Editors

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 2002

Leading Eating Disorder Treatment Facility Helps Adolescent Girls

and Women Overcome Eating Disorders by Offering Unique Programs

Including Art Therapy

Remuda Ranch, the nation's leading treatment facility for women and adolescent girls suffering from anorexia, bulimia and related issues, believes art therapy to be an important element in overcoming eating disorders.

"Through art, our residents are able to speak and express themselves," said Brenda Fox MS ATR, art therapist at Remuda Ranch. "Patients use the art they are creating as their voice. This is crucial for eating disorder patients because they often have a difficult time understanding and discussing feelings and art allows them to enter a creative and expressive space where they realize what they are feeling."

Fox firmly believes in the old cliche that "a picture is worth a thousand words." At Remuda Ranch, art therapists and residents examine the process of creating a work of art. Residents work quietly while listening to music. Art therapists help them to focus, get in touch with their emotions and examine how they are choosing to organize their work and express themselves. Once their work of art is completed, residents talk about it with their art therapist and in front of a group. Patients describe what feelings came up while creating and what the art is saying about their eating disorder. The art becomes a metaphor for their life and their eating disorder and a tool for self-revelation.

Remuda Ranch residents are actively involved in art therapy sessions during their intensive inpatient stay. They work with clay, finger-paints, collages, oil pastels, chalk, plaster-of-paris (masks), acrylic paints and other media.

"At Remuda Ranch, art therapy is given prominence because of its powerful ability to let patients express their emotions," added Fox. "We also get the resident's family involved in art therapy during Family Week. This is extremely beneficial to the family as a whole in the healing process, since many of the families have had chronic problems understanding their feelings. The way we do art is the way we do life."

Through the years, Fox has seen common characteristics in the family's emotions. Often times the father's art depicts death, meaning the father is very aware of the fact that his daughter can die from her eating disorder. The mother's artwork has a theme of journeying -- mothers view the eating disorder as a journey with light and hope at the end. The husbands of an eating disorder patient very often create works of art that picture feelings of helplessness and siblings often feel anger and rage toward the eating disorder or their sister who is suffering. The patient herself usually portrays images of darkness, entrapment and hope in her art.

About Remuda Ranch Programs for Anorexia and Bulimia

Remuda Ranch is a caring place for women and adolescent girls who are suffering from ever-increasing levels of anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorder related issues. Remuda Treatment Centers offer professional, Biblically based programs exclusively dedicated to the professional treatment of females suffering from eating disorders. Each resident is treated by a team of six professionals including a psychiatric and primary care provider, registered dietitian, Masters-trained therapist, psychologist and registered nurse. The professional staff equips each resident with the right tools to live a healthy, productive life. For more information, call 800/445-1900.