Boarding School Students with Eating Disorders

 

Adolescents in boarding school are experiencing something truly unique compared to their peers who are living at home and attending a school in the same community as their parents.  These students tend to be driven, bright and independent, but also much more likely to experience an eating disorder.

 

Although boarding schools are wonderful, fun and academically excellent institutions, they tend to be located in remote areas.  This means that students with eating disorders at boarding schools are in the unenviable situation of dealing with a very serious mental health disorder with a more general practitioner – sometimes a school therapist or a local generalist without the training and experience required to successfully manage these very difficult and potentially dangerous cases. 

 

Marisa attended Choate Rosemary Hall, a boarding school in Connecticut, where she witnessed these struggles firsthand.  In an effort to help these students, Marisa offers two services:

 

(1) Free consults to parents of boarding school students or to boarding school students with parental permission to help find a well-qualified local practitioner near the boarding school; and

 

(2) Online video counseling services.

 

When appropriate and with the permission of her patients and their parents, Marisa coordinates care with the school and those who live and work with the student on a day-to-day basis.