Can Body Group Therapy after Bariatric Surgery be Effective to Avoid Weight Regain? A Clinical Experience

Weight regain may occur with all three of the most common procedures (Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy and gastric banding), and it depends on nutritional, psychological and surgeryrelated factors.

There are very few studies directly investigating the clinical factors determining weight regain. Poor outcome after the first surgery may happen as follow-up studies underline stressing the importance of psychiatric or psychological factors in inducing it. The persistence of body shape concern and uneasiness after weight loss determining the inability to recognize one-self as an individual with own desire and capacity, is considered a risk factor for weight regain.

Psychotherapy is the most useful instrument to reconstruct body image and achieve weight maintenance.This study describes a clinical experience of body group therapy after bariatric surgery showing that psychotherapeutic treatment is necessary to reinforce the patient identity in order to prevent weight regain.

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