Psychotherapy Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Psychotherapy, including details on psychiatry, psychoanalysis, methods, outcomes.

Look at yourself: can body image therapy affect the cognitive and emotional response to seeing oneself in the mirror in eating disorders?

Vocks S, Wächter A, Wucherer M, Kosfelder J

Department of Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany. vocks@kli.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

The study examined whether the extent of negative body-related thoughts and emotions evoked by looking in a mirror can be changed by cognitive-behavioural body image therapy (BIT) and whether any remaining cognitive and affective responses dropped faster after the treatment. Females with eating disorders (n = 17) looked in a mirror for 40 minutes under standardised conditions before and after BIT. A control group (CG) (n = 24) was also exposed to their own bodies twice. Cognitive and affective reactions were assessed four times during the session. Hierarchical Linear Modelling revealed that among eating-disordered patients, the entrance levels of negative thoughts and feelings were lower at post compared to pre-BIT, whereas they remained stable in the CG. The extent of reduction of the remaining body image distress was not changed after the treatment. BIT seems to be a potent treatment of negative emotions and cognitions in an in vivo situation.

Published 25 February 2008 in Eur Eat Disord Rev, 16(2): 147-54.
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