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What is an Accountability Partner?
Should you get one for your eating disorder? How to utilize one?
Accountability means required or expected to justify actions or decisions. An accountability partner is someone willing to help you through a venture, which could be anything from running a marathon to recovering from drug addiction. You communicate with this person periodically about a particular topic. They are there to push you and hold you accountable for your actions.
For someone with an eating disorder, accountability partners assist each other in their recovery. They check up on each other regularly to advise on their disordered eating, and they might contact each other when symptoms or temptations are overwhelming.
Research on Accountability Partners in Addiction Recovery?
There isn’t a lot of research about addiction recovery and accountability partners. Though one study, conducted by the Department of Sociomedical Sciences of Columbia University, found that if a rehabilitation center encouraged responsibility between peers, recovery was more likely.
Researchers interviewed recovering addicts at a rehabilitation center for ten months. The pattern they uncovered was how influential accountability was. Individuals had a reciprocal sense of responsibility, both to and for…
