Description of eating-disordered, psychiatric, and normal women along cognitive and psychodynamic dimensions

Abstract

To evaluate various psychological constructs used in formulations of anorexia and bulimia nervosa, we compared 76 eating‐disordered, 20 psychiatric, and 24 normal women on measures of irrational cognitions, object‐relations disturbances, and defense styles. The eating‐disordered groups exhibited more disturbance on all measures than normals and many pathological elevations relative to psychiatric controls. Despite these differences, common qualitative features were identified in all patient groups, suggesting that formulations based on the factors examined alone, while useful in providing an understanding of patients' issues, will be inadequate to account for eating‐disorder development.

Emotion-focused group therapy: Addressing self-criticism in the treatment of eating disorders

“…They began therapy completely fused and identified with their inner critics, what they often called ‘my eating disorder voice’. This experience is consistent with existing literature, which has demonstrated that individuals with eating disorders are often highly self‐critical, a characteristic that works to maintain eating disorder pathology (Fennig et al., ; Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, ). The participants described the immense struggle involved in attempting to separate from that largely self‐destructive perspective in order to claim for themselves, however hesitantly, a feeling and assertive self.…”

Emotion-focused group therapy: Addressing self-criticism in the treatment of eating disorders

“…They began therapy completely fused and identified with their inner critics, what they often called ‘my eating disorder voice’. This experience is consistent with existing literature, which has demonstrated that individuals with eating disorders are often highly self‐critical, a characteristic that works to maintain eating disorder pathology (Fennig et al., ; Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, ). The participants described the immense struggle involved in attempting to separate from that largely self‐destructive perspective in order to claim for themselves, however hesitantly, a feeling and assertive self.…”

A controlled study of trait narcissism in anorexia and bulimia nervosa

“…Findings linking narcissism to the EDs in the relatively unique fashion observed here are, therefore, of theoretical interest. Our results are also consistent with data revealing prominent narcissistic themes in the projective-test protocols of bulimics relative to those of depressives (Weisberg, Norman, & Herzog, 1987), marked self-criticism in ED sufferers (anorexic and bulimic alike) relative to that in heterogeneous psychiatric controls (Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, 1990), and heightened perfectionism and sensitivity to social approval in anorexic patients (Sohlberg & Strober, 1994). If pathological narcissism is indeed characteristic of both restricter and binger/purger patients, this may have another more general significance: Conventional wisdom, based on DSM nosology, associates narcissism with the dramatic-erratic personality spectrum (presumed to be somewhat orthogonal to the anxious-fearful or overcontrolled personality variants).…”

Hypersensitivity to social interactions in bulimic syndromes: Relationship to binge eating.

“…In other words, over the span of this experience-sampling procedure, actively bulimic participants tended to report systematically more negative social perceptions and moods and more intense SC than did other participants. Our findings corroborate the belief that bulimic women are prone to negative social, mood, and "self experiences-when using an experience-sampling procedure that is likely to be freer of retrospective (and other) reporting biases than when using measures of social sensitivity or self-concept, which have been used previously with this population (e.g., Becker et al, 1987;Grisset & Norvell, 1992;Steiger et al, 1990).…”

Emotion-focused group therapy: Addressing self-criticism in the treatment of eating disorders

“…They began therapy completely fused and identified with their inner critics, what they often called ‘my eating disorder voice’. This experience is consistent with existing literature, which has demonstrated that individuals with eating disorders are often highly self‐critical, a characteristic that works to maintain eating disorder pathology (Fennig et al., ; Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, ). The participants described the immense struggle involved in attempting to separate from that largely self‐destructive perspective in order to claim for themselves, however hesitantly, a feeling and assertive self.…”

A controlled study of trait narcissism in anorexia and bulimia nervosa

“…Findings linking narcissism to the EDs in the relatively unique fashion observed here are, therefore, of theoretical interest. Our results are also consistent with data revealing prominent narcissistic themes in the projective-test protocols of bulimics relative to those of depressives (Weisberg, Norman, & Herzog, 1987), marked self-criticism in ED sufferers (anorexic and bulimic alike) relative to that in heterogeneous psychiatric controls (Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, 1990), and heightened perfectionism and sensitivity to social approval in anorexic patients (Sohlberg & Strober, 1994). If pathological narcissism is indeed characteristic of both restricter and binger/purger patients, this may have another more general significance: Conventional wisdom, based on DSM nosology, associates narcissism with the dramatic-erratic personality spectrum (presumed to be somewhat orthogonal to the anxious-fearful or overcontrolled personality variants).…”

Hypersensitivity to social interactions in bulimic syndromes: Relationship to binge eating.

“…In other words, over the span of this experience-sampling procedure, actively bulimic participants tended to report systematically more negative social perceptions and moods and more intense SC than did other participants. Our findings corroborate the belief that bulimic women are prone to negative social, mood, and "self experiences-when using an experience-sampling procedure that is likely to be freer of retrospective (and other) reporting biases than when using measures of social sensitivity or self-concept, which have been used previously with this population (e.g., Becker et al, 1987;Grisset & Norvell, 1992;Steiger et al, 1990).…”

Emotion-focused group therapy: Addressing self-criticism in the treatment of eating disorders

“…They began therapy completely fused and identified with their inner critics, what they often called ‘my eating disorder voice’. This experience is consistent with existing literature, which has demonstrated that individuals with eating disorders are often highly self‐critical, a characteristic that works to maintain eating disorder pathology (Fennig et al., ; Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, ). The participants described the immense struggle involved in attempting to separate from that largely self‐destructive perspective in order to claim for themselves, however hesitantly, a feeling and assertive self.…”

A controlled study of trait narcissism in anorexia and bulimia nervosa

“…Findings linking narcissism to the EDs in the relatively unique fashion observed here are, therefore, of theoretical interest. Our results are also consistent with data revealing prominent narcissistic themes in the projective-test protocols of bulimics relative to those of depressives (Weisberg, Norman, & Herzog, 1987), marked self-criticism in ED sufferers (anorexic and bulimic alike) relative to that in heterogeneous psychiatric controls (Steiger, Goldstein, Mongrain, & Van der Feen, 1990), and heightened perfectionism and sensitivity to social approval in anorexic patients (Sohlberg & Strober, 1994). If pathological narcissism is indeed characteristic of both restricter and binger/purger patients, this may have another more general significance: Conventional wisdom, based on DSM nosology, associates narcissism with the dramatic-erratic personality spectrum (presumed to be somewhat orthogonal to the anxious-fearful or overcontrolled personality variants).…”

Hypersensitivity to social interactions in bulimic syndromes: Relationship to binge eating.

“…In other words, over the span of this experience-sampling procedure, actively bulimic participants tended to report systematically more negative social perceptions and moods and more intense SC than did other participants. Our findings corroborate the belief that bulimic women are prone to negative social, mood, and "self experiences-when using an experience-sampling procedure that is likely to be freer of retrospective (and other) reporting biases than when using measures of social sensitivity or self-concept, which have been used previously with this population (e.g., Becker et al, 1987;Grisset & Norvell, 1992;Steiger et al, 1990).…”