Self‐liking and self‐competence: relationship to symptoms of anorexia nervosa

Abstract

Self-esteem has been hypothesised to play a pivotal role in the development and treatment, and outcome of anorexia nervosa (AN). Though this relationship is typically investigated by considering self-esteem as a unitary construct, research suggests that this comprises of two related but distinct components of self-liking and self-competence. This study investigates the association between self-liking, self-competence, and symptomatology of AN through the course of a defined treatment episode in 77 women. Self-liking was significantly associated with laxative abuse. Self-competence was significantly associated with elevated ineffectiveness, perfectionism and interpersonal distrust. Although self-competence and eating disturbance severity significantly improved over the treatment episode, one in three participants reported a reduced self-like or self-competence. Changes in both self-competence and self-liking at the end of treatment was associated with changes in drive for thinness. Such findings have implications for treatment models concerned with improving self-esteem.

A Challenge of Living? Understanding the Psycho-social Processes of the Child During Primary-secondary Transition Through Resilience and Self-esteem Theories

“…Many empirical studies employing a two-dimensional model of self-esteem have focused on university students (for example, Tafarodi and Milne 2002;Tafarodi and Swann 2001) and other groups of adults, such as patients suffering from eating disorders (Surgenor et al 2006;Sassaroli and Ruggiero 2005;Bardone et al 2003). It is only recently that such measures have been employed in studies in primary classrooms (see Miller and Lavin 2007;Miller and Moran 2007), helping to illuminate aspects of classroom practice and children's perceptions.…”

Neural Responses during Social and Self-Knowledge Tasks in Bulimia Nervosa

“…For example, an individual whose self-esteem is highly related to appearance might be very good at her work, and correctly describe herself as a competent employe, but maintain an overall low self-esteem because of perceived inadequacies of appearance. Furthermore, low self-esteem has been related to prognosis in AN (23, 24) as well as onset of bulimic symptoms (25). Negative beliefs about one’s self, unrelated to physical appearance, have been observed in eating disorders (26, 27), and neural differences in the processing of these negative self-beliefs have been seen in BN (28).…”

The Effects of Stigma on Recovery Attitudes in People With Anorexia Nervosa in Intensive Treatment

“…The self-esteem of people with AN has received the greatest attention: low self-esteem has been identified as a salient factor in triggering and perpetuating AN (Brechan and Kvalem, 2015;Button et al, 1996;Cervera et al, 2003;Courtney et al, 2008;Ghaderi and Scott, 2001;Gual et al, 2002;Halvorsen and Heyerdahl, 2006;Jacobi et al, 2004;Silverstone and Salsali, 2003;Surgenor et al, 2007;Wilksch and Wade, 2004) and a predictor of premature drop-out and poor treatment outcomes for those with AN (Halmi et al, 2005;Halvorsen and Heyerdahl, 2006;Wade et al, 2011). Self-esteem is intertwined with evaluations of individuals regarding their weight, shape, and size (Wilksch and Wade, 2004), and weightreducing practices are often utilized to modulate self-esteem (Surgenor et al, 2007). Along the same lines as self-esteem, self-efficacy in individuals with eating disorders has been shown to be associated with a positive view of their body image, lower rates of eating psychopathology (Kinsaul et al, 2014;Macneil et al, 2012), and enhanced ability to manage with body image and eating difficulties in treatment (Pinto et al, 2006).…”