Welcome to Intensive Structural Therapy.com

This site is to inform professionals and families about Intensive Structural Therapy (IST), a powerful psychotherapy model that is extremely effective in dealing with eating disorders and in the treatment of troubled adolescents.
Introduction Introduction
IST is a therapeutic model that works with the consumer, their family, and its larger social context. The therapist pinpoints where the system is stuck by identifying and transforming forces that are acting as a homeostatic maintainer.
Eating Disorders Eating Disorders
The IST model of eating disorders works with the consumer and her family context, addressing destructive patterns such as conflict avoidance, enmeshment, over protectiveness and rigidity. Dr Charles Fishman's book 'Enduring Change in Eating Disorders' provides treatment principles and is documented with up to 20 years of qualitative data.
Family Therapy Family Therapy
A model of intervention that is capable of dealing with the role outside institutions and their representatives play in the life of the family. Dysfunctional families are encouraged to become more adaptable and flexible, and to create appropriate boundaries between generations.
Adolescent Treatment Adolescent Therapy
IST works with young persons and their pivotal contexts: family, peers, school, and community. Structural family therapy techniques can be successfully applied to delinquency, violence, suicide, runaways and incest.
Training and Consultation Training & Consultation
Dr. Fishman has extensive experience in developing training programs, supervising clinicians and establishing new treatment services. He has conducted hundreds of workshops and presentations across the United States and abroad.
About Charles Fishman About Dr Fishman
H. Charles Fishman, M. D., a general, child, and adolescent psychiatrist, has nearly 30 years of experience treating families, adolescents, and patients with eating disorders.
Dr Fishman's Weblog Ask Dr Fishman...
Check out Dr Fishman's weblog where he responds to questions from other professionals, consumers, and their families. He also comments on news items about eating disorders, adolescent and family therapy.