Eavesdropping on the Experts: The Evolution of the Treatment and Prevention of Eating Disorders

Tamara Pryor, PhD, FAED

Senior Fellow and Director of Research at EDCare | Scientific Advisory Board Member for EDCare

Dr. Tamara Pryor has been privileged to work in the field of eating disorders for the past 30 years. She spent 16 years as an Associate Professor and Director of the Eating Disorder Program at the University of Kansas – School of Medicine, four years as Co-director of the PATH Eating Disorders Clinic, and three years at Wichita Psychiatric Consultants as the Director of eating disorder services before coming to Eating Disorder Center of Denver.

Dr. Pryor conducts research and has published articles examining personality disorders, substance abuse, multi-impulsive behavior, sexual functioning, and cognitive rigidity in the eating disordered individual. She has presented both nationally and internationally, and she co-authored a prevention curriculum and textbook as well as co-authored 3 chapters in a textbook on Eating Disorders and Substance Abuse. Dr. Pryor is a founding member of the Eating Disorder Research Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Eating Disorders and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Eating Disorders Association. She has a MSW from Wayne State University, a MA in Rehabilitation Counseling, as well as a PhD in Psychology from Southern Illinois University. She completed a fellowship in child psychiatry and a fellowship in eating disorders at the University of Kansas – School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine.

Amy Baker Dennis, PhD, FAED

Co-founder of Dennis, Moye & Associates | Scientific Advisory Board Member for EDCare

Dr. Amy Baker Dennis maintains a general practice and specializes in the treatment of eating disorders, mood and anxiety disorders, women’s issues, trauma and personality disorders. She has been in clinical practice for over 45 years.

Dr. Dennis spent 13 years in Columbus, Ohio working as the Executive Director of The Bridge Counseling Center (a community mental health center), was the Executive Director of the National Anorexic Aid Society and founded the Center for the Treatment of Eating Disorders in 1983. In 1988 she moved to Detroit, MI and became colleagues with Dr. Ann Moye. In 1991 they co-founded Affiliated Psychologists, and left in 1996 to open Dennis, Moye & Associates, in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

Dr. Dennis has served on the Boards of numerous national and international eating disorder organizations. She is a Founding Fellow, and past executive board member of the Academy for Eating Disorders (FAED), a Founding Fellow and Diplomate of the Academy for Cognitive Therapy (FACT), a Founder and past executive board member of the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), a founder and past board member of the Eating Disorder Network of Central Florida (EDNCF), and a Founding Member of the Eating Disorder Research Society (EDRS). She currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for EDCare, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Global Foundation for Eating Disorders (GFED).

Dr. Dennis has received numerous awards for her contributions to the field of eating disorders, has published extensively and has presented hundreds of workshops both nationally and internationally on the treatment of eating disorders.

Beth Hartman McGilley, PhD, FAED, CEDS

Owner of Path Clinic, LLC

Beth Hartman McGilley, Ph.D., FAED, Clinical Associate Professor, University of Kansas School of Medicine–Wichita is a psychologist in private practice, specializing in the treatment of eating and related disorders, body image, athletes, trauma, and grief. A Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), and a Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, she has practiced for over 30 years, writing, lecturing, supervising, directing an inpatient eating disorders program and providing individual, family and group therapy. She has published in academic journals and the popular media, as well as contributing chapters to several books. She is a journal editor for Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, and co-editor for the book: Treatment of Eating Disorders: Bridging the Research/Practice Gap. She has presented extensively to national and international, lay and professional audiences, as well as appeared on a variety of local and national news and radio outlets.

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. McGilley has been a chair or member of numerous committees for the AED since its inception. These include: Health Club Taskforce (Chair, 2009-2015), Medical Management Taskforce (Member, 2009-present), Public Relations Committee (Chair, Advocacy Subcommittee, 2002-04), Membership Recruitment/Retention Committee (Co-Chair.1999-03), Fundraising Committee (Member, 2001-02), Managed Care Task Force Committee (Member, 1997-01). She is the co-founder and Co-Chair of the AED Professionals and Recovery Special Interest Group, and is a member of the AED Somatic Therapies SIG.

Dr. McGilley also specializes in applications of sports psychology and performance enhancement techniques with athletes at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. She was the sports psychology consultant for the Wichita State University Women’s Basketball team from 2005-2008. She was the co-founder and co-chair of the Association for Applied Sports Psychology (AASP) Eating Disorders Special Interest Group from 2007-2012.

Dr. McGilley co-founded and for 12 years served as the President of the Healing Path Foundation, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to the prevention and treatment of eating disorders in Kansas. She is a longstanding member of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Kansas Psychological Association (KPA). She was a 2008 graduate of the Kansas Health Foundation Leadership Fellows Training program. Her hobbies include competitive cycling, hiking, writing, and time with her therapy dog, Wheeler the Healer.

Margo Maine, PhD, FAED, CEDS

Co-founder of the Maine & Weinstein Specialty Group LLC

The co-founder of the Maine & Weinstein Specialty Group LLC. Dr. Maine is a clinical psychologist who has specialized in eating disorders and related issues for over 35 years. A Founder and Adviser of the National Eating Disorders Association and Founder and Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, Dr. Maine is author of: Pursuing Perfection: Eating Disorders, Body Myths, and Women at Midlife and Beyond; Treatment of Eating Disorders: Bridging the Research- Practice Gap; Effective Clinical Practice in the Treatment of Eating Disorders; The Body Myth; Father Hunger; and Body Wars; and Senior Editor Emeritus of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. She is currently writing a book about women’s relationship with their hair, a neglected aspect of body image.

She was the 2007 recipient of The Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention, the 2014 recipient of the Don and Melissa Nielsen Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2015 NEDA Lifetime Achievement Award, Maine is a member of the Renfrew Foundation Conference Committee, and their Clinical Advisory Board, and the Walden Behavioral Care Clinical Advisory Board, Maine is a 2016 Honoree of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. She lectures nationally and internationally on eating disorders and maintains a private practice, Maine & Weinstein Specialty Group, in West Hartford, CT. She loves the earth and gets up early every day to celebrate it.

Michael Levine, PhD, FAED

Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Kenyon College

Michael P. Levine, Ph.D., is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he taught 33 years (1979-2012). In the field of eating disorders his commitment to research, writing, and activism focuses on the intersection between sociocultural risk factors, prevention, community psychology, and developmental psychology. He has authored two books and three prevention curriculum guides, and he has co-edited three books on prevention. In August 2015, as co-editor with his long-time collaborator and colleague Dr. Linda Smolak, he published a two-volume Handbook of Eating Disorders (Wiley & Sons Publishing). He and Dr. Smolak are currently working on a second, updated edition of their 2006 book The Prevention of Eating Problems and Eating Disorders (Erlbaum/Routledge/Taylor & Francis). In addition, he has authored or co-authored approximately 110 articles and book chapters, and he has presented his work throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, Spain, Austria, and Australia. He is a member of the advisory councils of The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), the Center for Study of Anorexia and Bulimia (CSAB, NY), the Center for Balanced Living (CBL, Columbus, Ohio) and Monte Nido & Affiliates—Eating Disorder Treatment Centers.

Dr. Levine is a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), which has awarded him their Meehan-Hartley Award for Leadership in Public Awareness and Advocacy (2006), and their Research-Practice Partnership Award (2008). Dr. Levine is also a member of the Founders Council of the National Eating Disorders Association, which awarded him the Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Prevention and Awareness (2004) and the Nielsen Award for Lifetime Achievement (2013). After living for 37 years in Mount Vernon, OH, with his wife, Dr. Mary A. Suydam, a retired (as of May 2015) Kenyon religious studies and women and gender studies professor, they moved to California in late June 2016, to live near UC Santa Barbara, where they both obtained all their degrees.

Michael Levine maintains the Levine Prevention/Sociocultural Factors TinyLetter email Group, which he uses to pass along information (e.g., research, advocacy, activism) related to prevention and to sociocultural factors to interested and involved people in the fields of eating disorders, body image, public health, dietetics/nutrition, community ad healthy psychology, social work, etc. As of mid-November 2016 there were 422 people in that Group, representing 24 countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, and the United States.