Work

The psychological experience and treatment of eating disorders

Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis comprises two research papers. The first is a literature review which examines the efficacy of group CBT in the treatment of bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED). Group CBT was compared to waiting list control, individual CBT, self-help CBT, other modes of therapy and CBT with an additional component. The review discusses the benefits of using group CBT in the treatment of BN and BED as well as areas for future research. The second is an empirical study which explores the experience of binge eating and loss of control for individuals with BN. Five women with BN were interviewed. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the data and five themes emerged. The participants described times when they are not binge eating (‘The meaning of food: The need for controlled eating’); interpretations of what leads to a binge (‘Embodied and contextual accounts of bingeing’); the difficulties of stopping a binge (‘During the binge: the point of no return’); loss of control as a conscious and subconscious process (‘Shifting in and out of a dissociative state’) and ‘The negative consequences of bingeing’. The findings are discussed in terms of current literature, future research recommendations and clinical implications.
Language: English
Field: Psychology
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W99219259
Cites: 62
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Related to: 10