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Emotional awareness and core beliefs among women with eating disorders
Author(s) -
Lawson Rachel,
Emanuelli Francesca,
Sines Jennie,
Waller Glenn
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
european eating disorders review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.511
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1099-0968
pISSN - 1072-4133
DOI - 10.1002/erv.848
Subject(s) - alexithymia , psychology , eating disorders , emotional eating , clinical psychology , association (psychology) , cognition , schema (genetic algorithms) , developmental psychology , psychiatry , psychotherapist , obesity , medicine , eating behavior , machine learning , computer science
Abstract Patients with eating disorders have been shown to experience the emotional components of alexithymia—difficulties in identifying and describing emotions. In keeping with cognitive theories, which stress the role of schema‐level beliefs in understanding emotions, this study examined the core beliefs that are associated with this difficulty in women with eating disorders. Seventy eating‐disordered women completed standardised measures of core beliefs and alexithymia. There were no differences in alexithymia between diagnostic groups, so the women were treated as a single, transdiagnostic group. Multiple regression analyses showed specific patterns of association between the core beliefs and the emotional elements of alexithymia. Difficulties in identifying emotions were associated with entitlement beliefs, while difficulties in describing emotions were associated with both abandonment and emotional inhibition beliefs. These findings suggest that it may be necessary to work with core beliefs in order to reduce levels of alexithymia, prior to addressing the emotions that drive and maintain pathological eating behaviours. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.