Psychological treatments and bulimia nervosa: An update

Abstract

his paper provides a brief overview of the diagnosis, prevalence, medical and psychosocial side effects, and T assessment of the dieting disorder, bulimia nervosa. An update is given of the psychological treatment approaches: cognitive behavioural, behavioural, hypnobehavioural, psychodynamic, psychoeducation, family therapy, and nutritional management. Findings from uncontrolled and controlled clinical trials are summarised, and we discuss some guidelines for clinical and research practice. Suggestions for further applied research include: developing an internationally agreed set of instruments to determine outcome, investigating the mode of action of various treatments, focusing on newer interventions, exploring the durabil-ity of shorter treatments, evaluating the effectiveness of less intense forms of treatment compared to more intense forms, determining which treatments match or suit certain patients, and exploring techniques to decrease attrition in treatment outcome research.