Uniting Couples in the
Treatment of Eating Disorders

Dr. Donald Baucom, Dr. Jennifer Kirby, and Dr. Bulik have created a suite of couple-based treatments for eating disorders called UNITE (Uniting couples in the Treatment of Eating disorders). We know that family members can be our best allies in treatment for youth with eating disorders, but often adults with eating disorders are expected to recover on their own without the full support of their loved ones. Partners are often eager to help, but fear saying or doing the wrong thing and inadvertently making things worse.

We combined our expertise in cognitive-behavioral therapy for eating disorders and cognitive-behavioral couple therapy to create a unique suite of interventions that engage partners in the recovery process in a developmentally appropriate manner.

After conducting workshops on UNITE around the world over the past decade, demand for training in this treatment modality has encouraged us to develop a series of online training modules. These trainings will be appropriate for eating disorder clinicians interested in developing specialized couple therapy skills and for couple therapists interested in developing specialized expertise in treating couples in which one or both partners have eating disorders. This training course will be available under the auspices of the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (NCEED) and continuing education credits will be available. Roll out is expected in 2022.