More than 700 mental health professionals from around the United States will participate in the 11th Annual Renfrew Center Foundation Conference to discuss topics related to adolescents struggling with eating disorders and trauma. The four-day conference, entitled "Feminist Perspectives on Adolescents & Families: Treating Eating Disorders and Trauma," will be held November 8-11, 2001, at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott Hotel.

"More eating disorders develop during adolescence than in any other period of life," said Judi Goldstein, MSS, LSW, vice president of Professional Relations and Education for The Renfrew Center and conference chair. "This conference will offer professionals an opportunity to explore current treatment issues and methodologies that can help young women and their families cope with this disease."

The Renfrew Center Foundation is the non-profit affiliate of The Renfrew Center, the nation's leading organization for the treatment of eating disorders. The conference is presented annually for professionals to help promote education in the field of women's mental health.

Workshop presentations at this year's conference include: -- Demons and Angels: Eating Problems, Self-Mutilation and Other Self-Harm
-- Size Matters: The New Approach to REALLY Helping People with Weight-Related Concerns
-- Too Thin to Win: Treating Eating Disorders in Adolescent Female Athletes
-- Race, Class and Sexuality Matter: Multiracial Feminist Perspectives on Trauma
-- Adolescent Substance Abusers with Eating Disorders
-- Genetics and Spirituality

This year's keynote speakers include Mary Pipher, PhD, author of the New York Times' best-selling books, Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other. She will discuss how her thinking has changed over time and offer creative solutions to help therapists, families, schools and communities aid teenagers with mental disorders.

Other keynote speakers include Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD, an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and clinical director of the Trauma Center at HRI in Brookline, Massachusetts; Ann Kearney-Cooke, PhD, director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute and a distinguished scholar for the Partnership of Women's Health at Columbia University; Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD, an associate professor in the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota; and Becky Thompson, PhD, associate professor of Sociology at Simmons College in Boston.

For more information on attending The Renfrew Center Foundation Conference, or to request registration materials, please phone The Renfrew Center at 1-800-RENFREW