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Emotional processing in eating disorders: specific impairment or general distress related deficiency?
Author(s) -
GilboaSchechtman Eva,
Av Liora,
Zubery Eynat,
Jeczmien Pablo
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
depression and anxiety
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.634
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1520-6394
pISSN - 1091-4269
DOI - 10.1002/da.20163
Subject(s) - alexithymia , psychology , anorexia nervosa , bulimia nervosa , eating disorders , distress , mediation , emotional dysregulation , clinical psychology , anorexia , affect (linguistics) , psychiatry , medicine , communication , political science , law
The literature on eating disorders emphasizes the relationship between alexithymia and anorexia nervosa on the one hand, and between bulimia nervosa and affect dysregulation on the other. In our study, two questions are addressed: (1) Are there different patterns of emotional processing deficiencies in anorexia and bulimia? and (2) Is there a unique contribution of eating disorders to emotional processing deficiencies? Participants were women with anorexia nervosa (ANs, n=20), bulimia nervosa (BNs, n=20), and normal controls (NCs, n=20). Three hypotheses were examined: (1) Women with eating disorders will exhibit lower emotional awareness and more deficient emotional regulation than will NCs (emotional deficiency); (2) ANs will be less emotionally aware than BNs, whereas BNs will be less capable of effective emotional regulation than ANs (disorder specificity); and (3) emotional distress will mediate the relationships between emotional processing and eating disorders (emotional distress mediation). Results supported the emotional deficiency and distress mediation hypotheses, and partially supported the disorder specificity hypothesis. The need to move beyond alexithymia in understanding the pattern of emotional processing deficiencies in eating disorders is discussed. Depression and Anxiety 23:331–339, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.