Generally, the results indicate that any bona fide psychotherapy will be equally effective. While the number of trials remains modest, we hope that as more research becomes available, treatment guidelines can be updated, and more evidence-based treatment options will be available for treating EDs.

Interpersonal problems play a prominent role in the development of binge-eating disorder (BED), so reducing their intensity may be a key focus of many psychological interventions. In recent years, several interpersonal treatments for BED were developed, which posit that binge eating arises to manage relational problems. However, few studies have evaluated the prototypical interpersonal problems, and no studies evaluated the longitudinal changes in interpersonal functioning after treatment within this population. We investigated the severity and prototypicality of interpersonal problems of 101 overweight women with BED from pre-group psychodynamic-interpersonal psychotherapy (GPIP) to 12 months post-GPIP. At baseline, we compared patients' interpersonal problems with two groups of matched controls (46 overweight and 49 normal weight women without a diagnosis of BED) and examined circular correlations between relational problems, depressive symptoms, and binge-eating frequency. Results showed that participants with BED had significantly higher levels of interpersonal problems compared with the matched control samples, with predominantly nonassertive and exploitable styles. Depressive symptoms were related to the presence of friendly-submissive interpersonal problems only among those with BED. Although the intensity of nonassertive interpersonal problems of patients with BED decreased post-group treatment, their profiles remained prototypically nonassertive and exploitable across all time points. Women with BED experience higher levels of interpersonal difficulties exemplified by an exploitable/nonassertive style that significantly improve but continue to prevail even after treatment. Clinicians might modify interventions to focus on increasing interpersonal skills and decreasing interpersonal dysfunctions among those with BED. KEYWORDS binge-eating disorder, interpersonal circumplex, interpersonal problems, obesity, group psychodynamic-interpersonal psychotherapy, structural summary method

No abstract

Objective: Attachment insecurity is a potential risk factor for the development and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). To date, there are multiple psychometrically sound questionnaires for the evaluation of attachment in both clinical and healthy populations, such as the Experience in Close Relationships (ECR) scale. Composed by two subscales (i.e., attachment anxiety and avoidance), the ECR scale was recently adapted to a shorter, 12-item version (ECR-12). However, a validation of the ECR-12 among patients with EDs is still lacking. The present study sought to investigate the psychometric properties of the ECR-12, when used in a treatment-seeking sample with EDs.Method: A total of 1,262 treatment-seeking patients with various ED diagnoses completed the ECR-12, together with a commonly used measure of ED psychopathology (Eating Disorder Inventory-2). Subsamples also completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire (n 5 66) or underwent a Day Hospital Program (n 5 128). Results:A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the ECR-12 maintained its twofactor structure across the ED diagnostic groups. In addition, the scale demonstrated good convergent validity, internal consistency, concurrent, and incremental validity. Finally, both ECR-12 subscales demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability.Discussion: Our results provide preliminary evidence of the psychometric properties of ECR-12 in assessing attachment anxiety and avoidance among patients with EDs. This short scale could help clinicians tailor interventions for EDs that take into account attachment dimensions. K E Y W O R D Sassessment, attachment, eating disorders, ECR-12, experience in close relationship scale