Eating disorders and multi‐level models of emotion: An integrated model

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between emotions, depression and eating disorders. Initially, a review is undertaken of the current state of the research and clinical literature with regard to emotional factors in eating disorders. This literature is then integrated within a version of the multi-level model of emotion proposed by Power and Dalgleish. The aim of this paper is to incorporate a basic emotions, multi-modal perspective into developing a new emotions-based model that offers a theoretical understanding of psychological mechanisms in eating disorders. Within the new Schematic Propositional Analogical Associative Representation System model applied to eating disorders, it is argued that the emotions of anger and disgust are of importance in eating disorders and that the eating disorder itself operates as an inhibitor of emotions within the self. It is hoped that the development of a multi-levelled model of eating disorders will allow for the construction of number of specific testable hypotheses that are relevant to future research into the psychological treatment and understanding of eating disorders.

Alexithymia, empathy, emotion identification and social inference in anorexia nervosa: A case-control study

“…The emotions of sadness and fear have been both linked to body disgust and body dissatisfaction (Fox & Power, 2009). This background may be helpful to understand our finding about patients" difficulties to correctly identify fear, while they recognized disgust better then HCs.…”

“…Self-disgust might have a central role in the maintenance of EDs and may be used as a means to suppress more ego-dystonic emotions including fear (Fox & Power, 2009). …”

Fatty acid–induced gut-brain signaling attenuates neural and behavioral effects of sad emotion in humans

“…This integrative process determines the overall hedonic experience (subjective pleasantness) associated with feeding, and knowledge of the underlying brain mechanisms is increasing (2,4,6,7). Finally, clinical evidence suggests an important overlap of digestive symptoms, disorders of food intake, and affective symptoms in disorders, including obesity (8), eating disorders (9), functional gastrointestinal disorders (10), and depression (11).…”

The role of self-disgust in eating psychopathology in overweight and obesity: Can self-compassion be useful?

“…Especially when directed at relatively stable attributes of the self (e.g. body weight), self-disgust seem to be particularly maladaptive and associated with disordered eating (Espeset et al, 2012;Fox & Power, 2009). However, research on self-disgust is still in its early stages.…”