Family Week

At Castlewood we believe that our clients have the best chance at recovery if we involve their support system in the treatment process. Castlewood Treatment Center offers family week every 6 weeks for our current clients and their support systems. For dates of upcoming family weeks please visit our upcoming conferences section of the website. Clients can choose to invite parents, siblings, spouses, or anyone else they want to include in their recovery process. Family week is a 3 day long intensive experience involving group, individual and family therapy. The staff provides psycho-educational groups for families to learn about Eating Disorders, the process of recovery, and co-morbid disorders such as Anxiety & OCD. In addition to didactic and educational sessions, families participate in intensive group therapy sessions which help them to identify and resolve problematic family dynamics. Families will also meet with our therapy staff individually and as a family to explore how they can best support their loved one in the recovery process. Helpful documents pertaining to family week have been provided below. You can download a sample schedule of family week groups, General family week information, hotel information and forms for participants to fill out prior to family week including a family questionnaire and visitor confidentiality agreement.

Family and Participant Testimonials:

From a siblings perspective:

“Castlewood’s “Family Week” gave me invaluable insight into the experience and treatment that someone with an eating disorder goes through. My sister suffers from an eating disorder and like most people my only experience with that comes from what I’ve seen in movies or on TV. The opportunity to see her in treatment – and take part in that treatment – provided me an opportunity not only to understand the process but to be a part of that process and help build the foundation for her recovery. Castlewood instilled strength in my sister, to open up and express herself to me in ways that she never had before. My grasp on her struggles and challenges is now deeper than I could have ever imagined prior to Family Week. Things that were right there in front of me – heavy things I did not see – are now on my radar, giving me the ability to help where before I could not. Sharing my experiences – in real-time – with other families that were going through the same or similar situations was incredibly helpful to me. Whether it was in full group meetings or the “men’s group” meetings, Castlewood provided clear direction for ways that we, along with our loved ones, can make it through the process of recovery. These meetings taught me more in 60 minutes than numerous books on the subject have taught me in 6 months. In addition to gaining the tools to help make a difference. I even made a friend or two. I can’t say enough about how helpful this Family Week experience was.”

From a mother’s perspective:

“I have found Family Week at Castlewood to be extremely helpful to each member of our family. It gives us a chance to explore how our family system works and how it needs to evolve to better support our daughter in her recovery process. Learning from and sharing with the other clients and their families (and their heartfelt openness) is a privilege to be a part of and a great comfort. Mark, Lori, the therapists and staff are dedicated to educating and supporting us, and most importantly letting us know that there is hope and recovery from eating disorders.”