The impact of a four‐month day treatment programme on alexithymia in eating disorders

Abstract

High prevalence rates of alexithymia have been reported in eatingdisordered patients. The aim of this study was first to investigate whether a 4-month day hospital treatment leads to a decrease in alexithymia in eating-disordered patients and second to see whether alexithymia predicts short-term outcome in this population. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) and the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) were given to 47 patients with anorexia nervosa (n ¼ 18), bulimia nervosa (n ¼ 25) and eating disorders not otherwise specified (n ¼ 4) respectively at the beginning and at the end of a 4-month treatment programme. Comparison of pre-and post-treatment scores showed significant declines in the EDI as well as in the TAS. However, baseline scores for alexithymia did not predict post-treatment outcome. We conclude that even highly alexithymic patients benefit from psychological treatment which encourages understanding and expressions of emotion and also leads to significant reduction in eating disorder-related symptoms.

Effects of Anger Awareness and Expression Training versus Relaxation Training on Headaches: A Randomized Trial

“…But only AAET increased assertiveness and emotional processing, whereas RT did not. Also, only AAET reduced alexithymia, a construct that has both trait and state components and that has been found to decrease in response to emotion-oriented interventions (61, 62). Emotional expression, however, did not change significantly in response to AAET, although it showed the expected trend in analyses of those participants who attended all sessions.…”

Nothing Tastes as Good as Thin Feels

“…Difficulties distinguishing between NEs have also been associated with elevated binging, purging, and fat-checking behaviors in nonclinical samples (Carano et al, 2006;De Berardis et al, 2007;Fink, Anestis, Selby, & Joiner, 2010). However, in other studies, researchers have not found a significant association between low NED and weight-loss behaviors (Becker-Stoll & Gerlinghoff, 2004;De Berardis et al 2007;Rastam, Gillberg, Gillberg, & Johansson, 1997). One potential explanation for these inconsistent findings is that these researchers have all examined NED, whereas no researchers to date have examined low PED, particularly in individuals with anorexia.…”

The Assessment of Alexithymia in Medical Settings: Implications for Understanding and Treating Health Problems

“…These questions are of obvious value not only from a clinical perspective but also from a theoretical viewpoint because one can demonstrate that a risk factor such as alexithymia actually contributes to health problems only by reducing or removing it and seeing whether health improves. Some studies have shown that alexithymia decreases over time during treatment of eating disorders (Becker-Stoll & Gerlinghoff, 2004;Clyne & Blampied, 2004;de Groot, Rodin, & Olmsted, 1995), yet these interventions were not attempting to reduce alexithymia directly, and the decrease in alexithymia may have been a reflection of reduced symptoms. Furthermore, these studies did not have control or comparison conditions to assess changes in alexithymia in the absence of treatment or given a different treatment.…”