COGNITIVE-PROCESSES IN DIETING DISORDERS

This study is an empirical investigation of the prevailing notion that dieting disorder patients have more dysfunctional cognitions and cogn itive styles than the nonclinical population. Groups of anorexics, bul imics, normal restrainers, and normal nonrestrainers completed three q uestionnaires and two repertory grids. Overall, the data supported a c ognitive model of dieting disorders. Patients exhibited a lack of awar eness of the role played by inner sensations in regulating weight and eating behavior, and emphasized black and white rules instead. Anorexi c patients tended to evaluate self-worth almost entirely in terms of s elf-control. Both patient groups evidenced extreme negativity in their views of themselves, but anorexics showed a particularly severe sense of self-isolation. Unlike bulimics, they extended a tendency to think in absolute terms from the area of eating to the rest of their lives. Thus, the psychopathology of the anorexic patient group appeared more severe than that of bulimics. (C) 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.