Exposure therapy in eating disorders revisited

Emotion generation and regulation in anorexia nervosa: A systematic review and meta-analysis of self-report data

“…Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a disorder characterised by a relentless pursuit of thinness and over-valuation of emaciation, driven by an extreme dread of food, eating and normal body weight (Koskina, Campbell, & Schmidt, 2013;Walsh, 2013). People with AN often present as outwardly bland, with little overt emotional expression; this is noted even in the very earliest description of the disorder.…”

Anorexia nervosa as a motivated behavior: Relevance of anxiety, stress, fear and learning

“…Body image therapy following weight restoration is also likely to be important, although interventions targeted at normalizing body image during weight gain are much less likely to be effective. The use of virtual reality environments may provide a novel tool for extinction training [106].…”

Identifying specific cues and contexts related to bingeing behavior for the development of effective virtual environments

“…As Koskina et al (Koskina, Campbell, & Schmidt, 2013) suggest, more research and new ways of applying these treatments are needed in order to overcome existing limitations such as logistical difficulties, the time required to carry them out, and the need for natural environments adapted to the requirements of each patient. For example, it can be difficult to gather together the actual foods (and their amounts) that a patient usually binges on, and it may not be possible to access the natural environment where binges occur.…”

“…In recent years, virtual reality (VR) technologies have been proposed to offer a new and valid way of applying cue exposure in the treatment of EDs (Koskina et al, 2013). Different authors (Ferrer-García, Gutiérrez-Maldonado, Caqueo-Urízar, & Moreno, 2009;Gutiérrez-Maldonado, Ferrer-García, Caqueo-Urízar, & Letosa-Porta, 2006) have highlighted the advantages of VR exposure in relation to EDs, not least that it helps overcome the limitations of in vivo exposure.…”