The third aspect of treatment, family therapy, is supportive in nature. It examines how the patient and her parents relate to each other. Persons with anorexia often become a source of family tension because refusals to eat cause frustration in the parents. The goal of family therapy is to help family members understand the condition and to encourage more mature and realistic thinking in the anorectic patient and to engage all family members in achieving the goal improving the well-being of the patient and the family unit. Immediate success does not guarantee ultimate solution.
Relapses are common, and a period of monitoring and followup of three to five years is advisable.